This Prominent San Francisco Landmark Site Was Owned By the Future Emperor Norton
Purchase Took Place at a Pivotal Moment for Joshua Norton
Steps from Where 10,000 Viewed His Body 27 Years Later
Exactly When Did He Sell?
HERE IS the second Phelan Building, at Market Street, O’Farrell Street, and Grant Avenue in San Francisco. This flatiron building was built by former San Francisco mayor James Duval Phelan, Jr. (1861–1930) and was completed in 1908. It stands today.
The second Phelan Building (1908) in 2014. Photograph by Marcin Wichary. CC BY-SA 3.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons
This is the second Phelan Building because there was a first — on the same site. The original Phelan Building was built by the former mayor’s father, James Duval Phelan, Sr. (1821–1892), and was completed in 1881.
Here is c.1888 photograph of this building:
The first Phelan Building (1881), c.1888. Britton & Rey Artotype No. 76, included with the 23 June 1888 number of the San Francisco News Letter. Source: San Francisco Public Library
The first Phelan Building was lost in the earthquake and fires of 1906, providing the occasion for the younger Phelan to rebuild.
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AS ILLUSTRATED in the map detail below, the Phelan Building — with its point at Market and O’Farrell Streets — occupies a triangle-shaped site that is the eastern half (or so) of the larger triangular block bounded by Market, O’Farrell, and Stockton.
San Francisco map detail showing the flatiron Phelan Building at Market and O’Farrell Streets. Source: Google Maps
While the original Phelan Building still was going up in June 1881, the San Francisco Examiner discovered some fascinating details about the ownership history of the underlying property.
The property originally was configured as two 50-vara lots that San Francisco Alcalde (pre-statehood mayor) Thaddeus Minor Leavenworth (1803–1893) — the Leavenworth Street “Leavenworth” — in 1848 granted to James Findler for a total of $25 — $8 per lot plus fees.
From 1848 until the elder Phelan started building on this property in early 1881, the property lay vacant.
Phelan had brought the property jointly with James Ross in 1854, then bought out Ross’s interest in 1860.
But, before Phelan’s arrival, there had been a few other owners of the property between 1848 and 1854. One of these owners was Joshua Norton.
The Examiner notes:
On September 22, 1852, James Findler sold this property to the late Josiah [sic] Norton, better known as “Emperor Norton,” a very eccentric individual, who died in this city within the past year. The price paid by Norton was $1,200. A few months after he purchased these these lots he sold them to A. C. Whitcomb and H. A. Webster for $1,500. Thus Norton made $300 on his investment in a few months.
Here’s the relevant excerpt from the Examiner’s June 1881 report:
Excerpt from article, “Phelan’s Block,” San Francisco Examiner, 19 June 1881, p. 1. Source: Newspapers.com
In 1888, the elder Phelan talked to the Santa Cruz Sentinel about his purchase of this property.
Although Phelan recalls some of the details differently, he confirms that Joshua Norton previously had owned the property.
Excerpt from article, “Some Big Bonds: A Chat With Capitalist Phelan,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, 18 April 1888, p. 3. Source: Newspapers.com
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THE ELDER PHELAN had Joshua Norton purchasing the future Phelan property in 1851.
My searches of historical newspaper databases for San Francisco papers in 1851 don’t find any mentions of this property.
However, a September 1852 auction listing for the property lines up with the Examiner’s 1881 report that Joshua purchased the property that month.
The property was Lot No. 907 (highlighted):
Theodore Payne & Co. auction ad including Lot No. 907, the future Phelan Building site, Daily Alta California, 6 September 1852. p. 3. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection
Previous connections between Joshua Norton and the auctioneer, Theodore Payne, may help to explain why Joshua might have felt comfortable purchasing the property through Payne’s firm — and raise the possibility that Payne might even have tipped Joshua to the opportunity. (For details of the following, see our October 2023 research article here.)
1
Joshua had purchased at least one other property through Theodore Payne, in October 1851:
Theodore Payne & Co. listing of auction sales, including Lot No. 981 purchased by Joshua Norton, Daily Alta California, 27 October 1851, p. 2. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection
2
Joshua earliest-documented business address was a temporary desk at Theodore Payne’s office immediately after the San Francisco fire of 4 May 1850:
Joshua Norton’s ad giving notice that the Payne & Sherwood auction rooms would be his business whereabouts “for a few days,” Daily Pacific News, 6 May 1850, p. 3. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection
3
If, as it appears, “Joshua Morton” is a typo, then Joshua Norton and Theodore Payne likely were co-signatories to this February 1850 open letter complaining to city fathers about the muddy condition of Montgomery Street between Washington and Jackson:
Open letter “To the Common Council of the City of San Francisco,” signed by “Joshua Morton,” Daily Alta California, 14 February 1850, p. 3. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection
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IN ITS June 1881 report, the San Francisco Examiner notes that Joshua Norton sold his property at Market and O’Farrell Streets “a few months after” purchasing it in September 1852.
It’s a shame that the Examiner doesn’t provide the date or at least the month when Joshua sold the property.
Recall that Joshua signed his fateful rice contract with Ruiz Hermanos on 22 December 1852 — and that Ruiz sued Joshua for non-payment and breach of contract 30 days later, on 21 January 1853.
If Joshua sold the Market and O’Farrell property before December 1852, the sale could be seen as a proactive strategy: Joshua girding his financial loins for a rice gambit.
If, on the other hand, Joshua sold the property after January 1853, it’s more likely that the sale was a reactive: that he was forced to unload the property because he was otherwise too cash-poor to initiate a vigorous legal defense.
Very different motivations.
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A FINAL serendipity…
Note, on the map above, a tiny street-spur off of O’Farrell called Security Pacific Place.
In the Emperor’s day, this was called Bagley Place.
On the northwest corner of O’Farrell and Bagley, a building at 16 O’Farrell had two important tenants: (a) the San Francisco coroner and (b) the undertaker and casket maker Lockhart & Porter.
It’s here that Emperor Norton was brought when he died on the evening of 8 January 1880.
It’s where a reported 10,000 people from all walks of life viewed the Emperor’s body and paid their last respects on the morning and early afternoon of January 10.
It’s where his funeral was held after the doors had been closed to the 10,000 — and where his two- or three-carriage cortege started its slow journey to the Masonic Cemetery.
It was north across the street from the still-vacant property he had bought and sold some 27 years earlier — and where James Duval Phelan, Sr., would break ground a year later.
In the following 1921 view from Market Street looking west on O’Farrell, the Kohler & Chase building is on the former site of 16 O’Farrell — a building lost in 1906 if not before. Peeping in from the left is the flatiron point of the second Phelan Building, now a little more than a decade old:
O'Farrell Street, San Francisco, looking west from Market Street, in 1921. Savings Union Bank building (1910), in the center, with Kohler & Chase building immediately to the west. Collection of the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. Source: Calisphere.
On 10 January 1880, the elder James Phelan was 58. The younger Phelan, his son, was 18.
Did one or both them make their way to 16 O’Farrell that morning to pay their respects?
It’s nice to imagine so.