So What, If Emperor Norton Had a Sweet Tooth?
In 1936, Conflicting Memories of the Emperor’s Predilections for Drink and Candy
AS THE SAYING goes: Memory has a way of playing tricks on you.
This already was evident in the first drafts of the Emperor Norton story that were created by the Emperor’s obituary writers in January 1880.
For their accounts of the Emperor’s life and times, these writers relied largely on memories and hearsay about events that had taken place as much as 30 years or more earlier. Or they just cribbed large chunks from the brief chapter on Emperor Norton in Benjamin E. Lloyd’s 1876 book, Lights and Shades in San Francisco — an account of the Emperor that was itself based on memories and hearsay.
Many of the details in these obituaries are accurate. But, with the benefit of documentation and fact-checking tools, modern researchers have been able to show that many other details aren’t.
Memory is not always the most reliable indicator of what took place in the past.
:: :: ::
FROM TIME TO TIME in the decades after Emperor Norton’s death, those old enough to have encountered the Emperor personally shared their memories of him in newspaper articles, interviews, and letters to the editor.
This continued into the 1950s, when people in their 80s and 90s were drawing portraits of Emperor Norton based on their childhood, teenage, and young adult recollections of him from as much as 80 years and more in the past — and more than 70 years after the Emperor’s passing.
When the obituarists of 1880 — people who could have seen or spoken to Emperor Norton weeks or even days before his death — when even these people were unable to keep their accounts of the Emperor free of murky, misremembered details…
It’s hardly surprising that — for those still alive and trying to conjure the Emperor 50-plus years later — the fabric of memory could be even more frayed and faded.
Here’s a curious example:
On 7 December 1936, the San Francisco News published an interview with “pioneer bartender” Jimmy Giusto (1861–1944) in which Giusto offered this memory of Emperor Norton:
Excerpt from profile of Jimmy Giusto, “S.F. Color Gone — It’s Just People and More People Now: Pioneer Bartender Recalls Days When City Was Filled With Characters,” San Francisco News, 7 December 1936, p. 8. (Text originally printed across two columns is merged here for clarity.) Source: Newspapers.com
It was during the last days of his regime that I got to know him. Daily, he passed my saloon on Fourth and Market-sts….I’d ask him in for a drink, but he’d go into a rage and wave his scepter…at me, threateningly. He was a tea-totaler, all right. His destination was a nearby candy store, where they gave him a bag of candy each day.
A “George Murphy” shot back with the following letter, published in the News three days later:
Letter to the editor from George Murphy, San Francisco News, 10 December 1936, p. 20. Source: Newspapers.com
As a gentleman who drank with "Emperor" Norton, I wish to deny the story of one bartender, Jimmy Giusto, that the “Emperor" visited “a nearby candy store where they gave him a bag of candy each day."
By all that is historical, are we to allow our beloved "Emperor" to be made a sissy when we are now celebrating the building of the bridge which he inaugurated? Are we to have "Bummer" and "Lazarus," the two faithful dogs of the "Emperor," sneaking into a candy store? Jimmy, your bartending days never reached back into the "sixties."
:: :: ::
AT LEAST in his parting shot — “Jimmy, your bartending days never reached back into the ‘sixties.’” — George Murphy was on point.
Jimmy Giusto claimed to have “got to know” Emperor Norton when the Emperor “passed my saloon on Fourth and Market” every day.
Emperor Norton died in January 1880. Born in 1861, an 18-year-old Giusto first appears in the San Francisco directory in 1879: at Fourth and Market, as it happens, but not tending bar — rather, as a clerk at Max Callaco’s tobacco shop.
Above: Two listings in Langley’s San Francisco directory, 1879. Top: James Giusto, p. 362. Bottom: Max Callaco, p. 180. Collection of the San Francisco Public Library. Source: Internet Archive
In the same building, apparently, was a saloon that had been run by Peter McArdle since 1876.
Giusto continues to be listed at Callaco’s tobacco shop through 1885 and is first listed as a bartender — at McArdle’s saloon — in 1886, continuing at McArdle’s until 1890.
Above: Two listings in Langley’s San Francisco directory, 1886. Top: James Giusto, p. 529. Bottom: Peter McArdle, p. 795. Collection of the San Francisco Public Library. Source: Internet Archive
Based on the directory listings, Giusto was not behind the bar until 6 years after the Emperor Norton’s death in January 1880.
Is it possible that an 18-year-old Jimmy Giusto was picking up the odd shift at McArdle’s in 1879 — providing him with an opportunity to “ask [the Emperor] in for a drink”? Yes.
Is it likely? No.
Emperor Norton was fond of a pipe. Perhaps Callaco’s was one of the Emperor’s tobacco stops, and this is how Giusto met the Emp.
:: :: ::
FINDING the right “George Murphy” is a different matter. In the 1936 San Francisco directory alone, there are 15 people by that name, half with no initial — and the only residential listing at 712 Castro is for a plumber named Fred (Edward) Curtis.
I somewhat suspect that our letter-writing Murphy might have provided a false address in order to speak bluntly while protecting his identity.
It seems likely that a person motivated in 1936 not only (a) to come to Emperor Norton’s defense but also (b) to take out a personal and public challenge about the Emperor’s specific habits would be someone who — in this case — saw themselves as having equal or greater “pioneer” standing than Jimmy Giusto.
This particular writer’s self-identification as a “gentleman” suggests, additionally, that he was a person of some accomplishment.
A candidate who matches this profile is George Thomas Murphy (1856–1949).
According to the U.S. Census of 1860, Murphy was born in Ireland but living with his family in Coloma, El Dorado County — 35 miles northeast of Sacramento — by the time he was 4 years old.
Murphy became a well-known dairy cattle rancher in the region. Also: Together with his younger brother James and another partner, Murphy for nearly 30 years (1891–1918) owned and managed an early Lake Tahoe resort known as McKinney’s. This was along the south rim of McKinney Bay, between present-day Tahoma and Homewood.
In 1936, an 80-year-old Murphy was living on Wickson Street, in Oakland.
:: :: ::
AGHAST at the prospect that Emperor Norton “be made a sissy,” this or some other George Murphy strongly suggests that a fondness for candy is for women and girls — not a pursuit for a manly Emperor.
Was this a common attitude among men in 1936? Or does it tell us that the letter writer had masculinity issues?
The truth is: Even in the 1870s, the Emperor probably was not getting three square meals a day. A bag of “sugar hits” might have proved very useful in keeping him going on any given day.
The Emperor would have had plenty of choice. The Business section of Langley’s San Francisco directory for 1879 listed 170 candy shops under “Confectionery.”
I rather like the idea that Emperor Norton had a candy habit — and that a daily bag was a simple perk that some sensitive subject with a candy shop saw fit to provide.
Who knows? Perhaps George Murphy did drink with the Emperor. Although Emperor Norton was reported to have signed an abstinence pledge in January 1879, he generally was known to be temperate — but not abstinent — in his drinking habits. Twice in 1874, he issued Proclamations warning against “the use of ardent spirits, as a beverage,” bur carved out exceptions for “the use of malt liquors for the working man, and 'wine for the stomach's sake.'" Presumably, the latter included sherry, port, madeira, and such.
But perhaps Jimmy Giusto was right about the candy — even if he never tried to lure the Emperor to his bar.
:: :: ::
For an archive of all of the Trust’s blog posts and a complete listing of search tags, please click here.
Search our blog...