Emperor Norton's Pipe Dreams

Biographical and Artistic Clues Point to an Abiding Fondness for Cigars and Pipe Smoking

ONE OF THE MOST intriguing — if rarely seen — motifs in visual-artistic depictions of Emperor Norton is the pipe.

Here’s one from the Emperor’s lifetime, painted by Virgil Williams in the 1870s. The original is reported to have hung in the Bohemian Club until it was lost in the earthquake and fires of April 1906.

Portrait of Emperor Norton, c.1870s, by Virgil Williams (1830-1886). Possibly a copy by Leola Hall Coggins (1881–1930). Collection of the Bancroft Library at the University of California Berkeley. Source: Calisphere.

A little more than a century later, in 1984, San Francisco Yesterday and Today, a 7-paneled bas-relief sculpture by Ruth Asawa (1926–2013), was installed in the porte-cochère (covered driveway) of the Parc 55 Hilton in San Francisco — accessed near the corner of Cyril Magnin and Eddy Streets.

One of the panels features a depiction of Emperor Norton. Note the pipe tucked in to the Emperor’s jacket pocket:

Detail from San Francisco Yesterday and Today (1984), by Ruth Asawa (1926–2013). Located in the porte-cochère (covered driveway) of the Parc 55 Hilton, San Francisco. Detail of photograph © 2015 by Joseph Amster. For more photos of the complete 7-paneled sculpture, click here.

Back to the 1870s…

In January 1873, against the backdrop of the Modoc War — an armed conflict between the United States Army and Native American Modoc people living in northeastern California and southeastern Oregon — Emperor Norton, with a view to ending the conflict , issued a Proclamation urging California governor Newton Booth to send a delegation to persuade the Modoc chiefs to “come to San Francisco and smoke the Calumet” — the peace pipe — “with the Emperor.”

Proclamation of Emperor Norton on the Modoc War, The Pacific Appeal, 25 January 1873, p. 1. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection

Ten years earlier, in May 1863, a freelance writer for the San Francisco Sunday Mercury sketched the following brief portrait of Emperor Norton as part of a column on the “characters” that could be seen in the regular afternoon promenades along Montgomery Street.

In setting the scene, the writer observes that the Emperor “has just made a requisition on the cigar store at the corner for ‘one to smoke,’ and having obtained it, is puffing off the cares of State, and meditating on his next decree.”

Although the writer may be reporting on a particular afternoon’s promenade, it may also be that the writer includes the detail about Emperor Norton stopping in to a cigar shop because smoking cigars was a part of the Emperor’s routine.

Excerpt from “Local ‘Characters,’” installment “Number Two” of a “City Sights and Sounds” column, San Francisco Sunday Mercury, 24 May 1863, p. 2. Source: Genealogy Bank

Apparently, the shop in the Sunday Mercury column was on Montgomery Street. But, a pioneer tobacconist with shops on a couple of different streets claimed Emperor Norton as a longtime customer.

Henry Sutliff (1831–1905) and Thomas Sutliff (1833–1899), brothers from Baltimore, established what became the Sutliff Tobacco Company upon moving to San Francisco in 1849. Now a subsidiary of the Danish tobacco company Mac Baren, Sutliff continues in business 175 years later.

In connection with the California centennial in 1950, Sutliff in 1948 produced a commemorative booklet, 100 Years With the Sutliff Tobacco Company.

Cover of commemorative booklet, 100 Years With the Sutliff Tobacco Company, 1948. Collection of John Lumea.

According to this booklet, Sutliff's first shop, from 1849 to 1851, was on Washington Street just east of Kearny Street. Here, Henry Sutliff sold chewing tobacco, cigars, snuff, and walking sticks. The shop burned in the fire of May 1851.

The second Sutliff shop, from 1851 to 1906, was on Kearny Street (east side) between Washington and Jackson Streets. The original address of this location was 842 Kearny, changing to 832 Kearny in 1865. Here, the Sutliffs expanded into selling pipes and pipe tobacco — with the company first manufacturing its own pipe tobacco in the early 1890s.

For about 15 years, starting in 1872, Sutliff had a branch at 330 Kearny between Bush and Pine.

According to the following excerpt from the Sutliff history, Joshua Norton — later, Emperor Norton — “was a regular patron of the early Sutliff Tobacco Shops, where his own currency was goodnaturedly honored.”

Henry and Thomas Sutliff had come from Baltimore, Maryland, and the shop at 832 Kearny became the rendezvous for Baltimoreans; it became an unchartered society and the members were called the Baltimore Boys. And through the pleasant friendly atmosphere of the fragrant tobacco shop constantly walked another of the men who had come to the Coast with the gold rush; another who saw a greater harvest of gold on Montgomery Street than in the foothills of the Mother Lode.

His name was Joshua Norton. He was a shrewd and wise businessman, and his judgment in affairs of business was unsurpassed; of all the early builders of the city he was one of the most highly regarded.

In fact, Joshua Norton might have been one of Sutliff’s more tobacco-savvy customers.

As a merchant, Joshua was a generalist. His business advertisements between 1850 and 1856 show him trading in all sorts of commodities: linseed oil, coal, flour, beans, coffee, tea, brandy, whiskey, wool, furs, hides — and, of course, rice.

Joshua doesn’t appear to have run any tobacco-related ads. And, yet: The only commodity-specific business address for Joshua Norton that appears in any San Francisco directory is for a cigar importing business at 113 Jackson Street.

Two listings at this address — one for “Segars”; one for “Norton & co. imp cigars” — appear in James M. Parker’s San Francisco Directory for 1852–53 — published in fall 1852.

Listings for Joshua Norton, including for his residence at the Rassette House, James M. Parker’s San Francisco Directory for 1852–53, published 1852, p. 81. Collection of the San Francisco Public Library. Source: Internet Archive

Joshua was not a retailer; he was a wholesaler. The point of any cigar importing business would have been to supply tobacco shops like Sutliff’s.

Perhaps Joshua did supply Sutliff’s. And, perhaps it was in gratitude for Joshua’s support as a first-adopting supplier and consumer that Sutliff’s was happy to honor the Emperor’s promissory notes in later years — whether for an occasional cigar or for tobacco for his pipe.

Like an afternoon at the Woodward’s Gardens skating rink or an evening at the theater, enjoying a cigar or pipe would have been one of the few purely indulgent simple pleasures that Emperor Norton afforded himself — that is, if a sympathetic friend or subject didn’t “afford” it for him first.

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