Joshua Norton, Street Fighter?

A Curious Report from 1887

IMMERSE YOURSELF for long enough in the study of an historical subject — or any subject, really — and it becomes more and more difficult to be surprised or to discover a basic narrative detail that seems new.

This week, I was surprised.

I have nice hard copies of nearly all the major secondary print sources on Emperor Norton — books; books with chapters on the Emperor; magazines with articles, etc.

A rare early source that I don’t have in deadwood is the May 1892 issue of The Overland Monthly magazine. This issue includes an article by Francis Sheldon, “Street Characters of San Francisco,” that opens with a lengthy profile of Emperor Norton.

From time to time, I scout around to see if a copy is available online at a price I can afford.

In this week’s search, what turned up is an article from an earlier issue of The Overland Monthly — August 1887.

In fact, the article is a letter to the editor, printed across nearly two full pages, in which the writer offers a response to an article that had run in the Daily Alta a couple of months earlier, on 30 May 1887.

In the Alta article, headlined “The Days of Forty-Nine,” a reporter visits the Society of California Pioneers museum and gets a running commentary from his host, H.B. Livingston, about the artifacts that catch his — and Livingson’s — attention.

Henry B. Livingston (c.1824–1897) was a veteran California journalist — first in Sacramento, then in San Francisco — who had spent some 15 years in the 1850s and ‘60s as an editor at the Alta and now was entering semi-retirement as the Pioneers’ official historian.

Recall that, after Emperor Norton died in January 1880, his personal effects were transferred to the Society of California Pioneers by resolution of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Here’s how the Alta reporter covers Livingston’s narration of the imperial exhibit case:

Excerpt from article, “The Days of Forty-Nine,” Daily Alta California, 30 May 1887, p. 1. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection

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UNDER THE TITLE “Some Amended Historic Data,” the Overland Monthly letter writer opens by justifying, in a manner, the obligation to correct public errors on the pioneer history of California:

They who write of scenes and events, for publication, cannot be too carefully correct as to persons, dates, and circumstances; inasmuch as the future compiler of history must depend upon these contemporaneous publications for the data of his narratives. In particular those who write of the early period of the Ameriecan occupation of California — “the days of '49" and the few subsequent years which embrace the "gold period,” should remember the part their writings will play in fixing the history of California.

The writer goes on to pay careful respects to Henry Livingston:

The narrative is well written and very interesting throughout. The facts were derived, as the writer gives due credit, from a veteran pioneer in California journalism, an honored member of the Society of Pioneers, who is conscientious in his statement of facts. Nevertheless he is in some instances faulty and inaccurate. This is to be regretted, for the reason that whatever has the endorsement of his name in such connection is more likely to be accepted as true. The paper cannot reasonably be held responsible for errors of statement into which it has been led by the inaccuracies of correspondents or informants in whom it has faith.

The writer signs simply as “Pioneer” and writes with apparent knowledge of the Society of California Pioneers and its recent “establishment…of a historical department.” This suggests one reason why he — the writer almost certainly is a “he” — treads lightly on Livingston’s reputation: likely, the writer is himself a member of the Pioneers.

Towards the end of a rather meticulous fact checking, the letter writer comes to Emperor Norton, focusing on Livingston’s claim that Joshua Norton “came to this State in ‘51.”

“Pioneer” corrects this with the memory that Joshua

was before Alcalde John W. Geary in March or April of [1850] for an assault he committed upon a member of the neighboring house of McKinley, Johnson, & Co. He was held guilty and fined. Henry L. Dodge was clerk at that time, and mayhap will recall the circumstance.

Here’s the full excerpt of Pioneer’s letter from The Overland Monthly:

Excerpt from Letter to the Editor by “Pioneer,” The Overland Monthly, V10 N56, August 1887, pp. 222–223. Source: University of Michigan (Note: This excerpt originally was published across two columns. It has been merged into a single column here to aid readability.)

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ONE WOULD NEED at least one additional credible source — preferably contemporaneous documentation — in order to give full credence to this story.

But, the fact that — even at a distance of 37 years — the account appears to come from someone who was an eyewitness to the San Francisco of 1850 makes the account worthy of note.

If — if — the story is true, then it provides an early anchor and baseline for later documented reports that Emperor Norton could be prone to having a short fuse, if he felt he was being disrespected.

In fact, the personal effects transferred to the Society of California Pioneers from the Emperor’s person and residence included only one sword.

According to a San Francisco Examiner item of February 1880, the second of the “two swords” that Henry Livingston notes as being part of the Pioneers exhibit originally was gifted to Emperor Norton in 1865 and confiscated from him shortly thereafter when

a drunken individual met him on the street and tantalized him, whereupon he drew his sword from its scabbard and would have run the man through had not a police officer stepped up and disarmed him.

Was Joshua Norton convicted of assault in 1850 — and is this an early sign that he had anger issues?

Stay tuned. We are.