A certain conventional wisdom holds that Emperor Norton adopted the title "Protector of Mexico" around the time French emperor Napoleon III invaded Mexico in 1862 and installed his puppet ruler Maximilian I in 1864 — and that the Emperor dropped his "Protector" title a few years later.
The documentary record says otherwise.
Evidence suggests that Emperor Norton did not start using "Protector of Mexico" until early 1866, more than halfway into Maximilian’s tenure, but makes clear that he kept using the title — both to advocate for Mexico and for general purposes — for the rest of his life.
A surprising find: Norton I expanded his title to "Emperor of the United States and Mexico" in 1861.
By the time the Emperor assumed his protectorship of Mexico, he had relinquished his emperorship of that country.
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Joshua Norton's Proclamation of 17 September 1859 declaring himself "Emperor of these United States" would appear to settle the question of when Emperor Norton’s reign was inaugurated.
Except.
Except for a line that Emperor Norton attaches to his signature to several of his Proclamations of the 1860s, in which the Emperor specifies that a given Proclamation was issued “in the [X]th year of our reign.”
Assuming, for example, that a Proclamation that Emperor Norton signed “in the 16th year of our reign” was one he issued between the 15th and 16th anniversaries of his reign…
The “math” that the Emperor uses in these little clauses strongly suggests that he may have thought of himself as being Emperor for at least 4 years — and for as much as 7 years — before he declared it publicly in 1859.
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Among the buildings destroyed in the San Francisco fire of May 1851 was James Lick's adobe at 242 Montgomery Street, where Joshua Norton's office had been located since May 1850.
In the wake of the fire, Joshua made at least two trips up the Sacramento River and met with prominent Sacramento auctioneer and commission merchant James Blackwell "J.B." Starr (1810–1862). In June 1851, Starr and Norton started offering a packet service between Sacramento and San Francisco using a schooner apparently brought to the table by Starr.
It was a very brief arrangement, lasting about long enough for Joshua to regroup and find new office space in San Francisco.
Four years later, in early May 1855, the Fourth District Court of California set the financial terms of Joshua's California Supreme Court loss in his rice contract dispute with the consignment firm of Ruiz Hermanos: $20,000.
Two weeks after this, J.B. Starr joined a wool-buying promotion that included Joshua Norton — and that appears to have been designed by former business associates of Joshua to help him through a difficult time and to show that he was not friendless.
It was the second time that Starr had thrown Joshua a lifeline.
Emperor Norton's reign in San Francisco coincided with the advent and growth of opera in his adopted city.
In one of the Emperor's earlier Proclamations, published in December 1865, he enjoins his subjects to attend and support the opera, writing: "The man that has no music in his soul is fit for Treason, Strategem, and Spoils. Let no such man be trusted....The Nation that supports music shows an advancement in Civilization and Refinement."
In April 1872, Emperor Norton returns to these themes in a Proclamation that focuses on a specific company, the Bianchi troupe, that had been identified with opera in San Francisco for nearly 15 years — but now was failing.
Several episodes in the Bianchi story illustrate the challenges that beset the enterprise of opera in San Francisco during this period — challenges that lay at the heart of the Emperor's recognition that, in order for any opera troupe to nourish the public soul, it first must succeed as a business enterprise.
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The legendary San Francisco attorney Melvin Mouron Belli (1907–1996) was — among many other things — an enthusiast of the Emperor Norton.
No doubt, this — and Melvin Belli’s way with a pen — is why William Drury enlisted Belli to write the Foreword for his 1986 biography of the Emperor.
Throughout his very public life, Belli repeatedly and habitually associated himself with Emperor Norton.
As shown in the scenes documented here...
an Emperor Norton cosplayer who "knighted" Belli at the 1960 Belli-staged dedication of two Gold Rush-era buildings that Belli had restored — one of which he would use for his law office
Belli's own cosplaying of the Emperor for a San Francisco Examiner magazine feature in 1987
Belli's interviews comparing public birthday parties he threw for himself in 1982 and 1987 to imagined birthday celebrations for Emperor Norton in the Emperor's day
...Belli invoked the Emperor in ways that suggested a link between his fight for justice and his flair for the eccentric.
Indeed, Belli's Norton-flavored theatrics helped his audiences to see that — as with Emperor Norton — his own eccentricity was a key to his influence.
Click below for stories, photographs, newspaper clippings, and video.
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In September 2020, The Emperor Norton Trust uncovered a San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin article from 26 May 1860 reporting that Emperor Norton had “again donned his epaulettes” for the previous evening’s promenade on San Francisco’s Montgomery Street.
The suggestion was that the Emperor had been seen wearing epaulettes before. But, the May 1860 article was — and has remained — the earliest documented sighting of the Emperor wearing his uniform in public.
Of course, the “best available evidence” is the “best” only until it is supplanted by something better.
This past week, we found two such pieces of evidence: contemporaneous reports of Emperor Norton wearing a uniform in March of 1860 — two months earlier than our previous finding indicated.
In one report, the Emperor debuted his new regalia during the St. Patrick’s Day festivities of 17 March 1860.
In another, he wore it to a performance of Richard III that was staged at Maguire’s Opera House, Washington Street, on 28 March 1860.
Part of the new documentation is a superb lengthy letter from the San Francisco correspondent of the Mountain Democrat newspaper of Placerville, Calif. — about “the movements of Joshua Norton.” The letter is worth the price of admission!
Click below for details.
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It appears that the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin was the only San Francisco paper that ran Joshua Norton’s Proclamation of 17 September 1859 declaring himself “Emperor of these United States.”
But, it turns out that there were six other papers outside San Francisco that published the Proclamation as news during the 2½-month period from mid September to early December 1859.
Three of these six papers were in Northern California. Two were in the South. And one was on the East Coast.
Only one of the six — the Daily National Democrat of Marysville, Calif. — published verbatim the text that appeared in the Bulletin, including the Bulletin’s editorial headline and introduction.
The other five papers all featured some combination of a different headline; no headline; or a different intro text.
Click below to see the Proclamation as it appeared — and the Emperor as he was introduced — in each of these six newspapers. If other examples surface, we’ll add them here.
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Throughout and beyond the period, 1853–56, of Joshua Norton’s bruising legal and financial trials prompted by his rice contract dispute with the firm of Ruiz Hermanos — even as a succession of creditors were suing Joshua to recover their debts and the lower courts were resolving these lawsuits by foreclosing on Joshua’s properties — Joshua remained politically engaged.
In May 1855, Joshua ran as a Democratic candidate for San Francisco tax collector.
In August 1858, he presented himself as an independent candidate for U.S. Congress.
New information has surfaced showing that, in between these two moments — in February 1856 — Joshua Norton joined nearly 1,000 other members of San Francisco Democratic Party in signing a public statement protesting corruption in the local party; “refus[ing] further allegiance to the General Committee,” i.e., the local party leadership; and pledging to re-establish the local party according to its original ideals.
Joshua’s action sheds light on his pivot away from party politics towards engaging as a political independent.
It is an important, previously unreported episode in Joshua’s evolution towards becoming the figure who, as Emperor, critiqued public institutions as one who once was inside them but now stood outside.
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The San Francisco Examiner's 9 January 1880 obituary of Emperor Norton noted that "[h]is living was very inexpensive. He occupied a cheap room and boarded at cheap restaurants."
We recently discovered two sources that point to what appears to be a generations-forgotten association of the Emperor with such a spot: his breakfast patronage of Sorbier's Restaurant, on Commercial Street, less than a block from his own residence on Commercial.
Both sources are written by people who were in San Francisco during Emperor Norton's lifetime: The first is the Japan Weekly Mail's February 1880 obituary of the Emperor — the second, an article of reminiscences published in a San Francisco-based scientific journal in May 1910.
Read on for the full story.
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Two things that have been on The Emperor Norton Trust’s radar for some time…
…don’t make the shortlist of highlights in most tellings of the Norton story.
It turns out that these are part of a larger focus on railroad safety that Emperor Norton had added to his portfolio of concerns by 1869 — the year of a Proclamation we discovered recently that we believe is previously unreported.
We document and provide context for the 1869 Proclamation here.
Also included is documentation of two other of our recent discoveries:
the first news report of Emperor Norton’s railroad switch invention, published in Mining and Scientific Press, a serious and well-respected San Francisco journal of technology-focused industry news, and
the second news report of the invention, which appeared in a Brooklyn, Calif., newspaper the day before the Pacific Appeal — the Emperor’s imperial gazette — published his own Proclamation about it.
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During Emperor Norton’s lifetime, his uniform was regular grist for the fourth estate.
Editorial commentary about the imperial regalia fell mainly into two categories:
Bemused — or outright amused — descriptive lists of the elements that made up the Emperor’s dress: The second-hand military coat with a second-hand blossom in the lapel. The oft-tarnished epaulettes. The feathered beaver hat. The hand-carved walking stick. The sword. The Chinese umbrella. The shoes into which the Emperor had cut holes to relieve his corns.
Laments about the “seedy,” dilapidated state of the uniform.
Rarely seen are opinions as to what might justify such an ensemble in the first place — other than the Emperor’s own notions of regality — or whether, indeed, the ensemble could be justified at all.
Read on for two examples, recently discovered.
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In…
Directory listings showing one of his business interests;
A number of stories about him from his lifetime;
At least one Proclamation by him; and
At least one painting of him done during his life
…there are clues that Emperor Norton had an abiding fondness for cigars and for pipe smoking.
Here, we line up in one place all the evidentiary “dots” we’ve located so far.
Some rare finds here.
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Some years ago, I happened upon a lengthy newspaper article — from the 1890s, if memory serves — with a list of honorarily named California redwoods. One of the trees carried the name “Emperor Norton” — so, I made a mental note and resolved to return to this “detective ground” in the future.
Recently, I was delighted to find photographic evidence of an “Emperor Norton” tree: an apparently unpublished stereocard by Eadweard Muybridge, dated 1868, showing a man in a deep bow before a redwood with an "Emperor Norton" sign affixed to it.
The Bancroft Library, which has the card, identifies the site of Muybridge's scene as "Probably in the Mariposa Grove, near Yosemite Valley."
In my effort to confirm this detail, I found multiple references — from the period between 1867 and 1910 — to "Emperor Norton" trees in both of the noted redwood sections of Yosemite: the one in Mariposa County and another in Calaveras County.
The evidence strongly suggests that the tree in Muybridge's stereograph is in Calaveras.
High-resolution image included.
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Surely, one sign that a person has achieved the level of “cultural saturation” that we sometimes call “fame” is when when independent sources start using that person’s name as a shorthand to characterize other people.
Here are four stories of people not Emperor Norton who — during Emperor Norton’s lifetime — were labelled in the California press as various kinds of "Emperor Norton":
an “Epistolary Emperor Norton” in 1867;
“the Emperor Norton of the News” in 1869;
"the Emperor Norton of the California press" in 1873; and
the “Healdsburg Emperor Norton” in 1878.
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Ask any careful student of the Emperor Norton story to name the most famous early cartoonist of the Emperor and they are likely to single out Edward Jump (1832–1883). They would be right about that.
They might go on to credit Jump as the first artist to depict Emperor Norton with the dogs Bummer and Lazarus. About this they would be wrong.
It's true that, in the early 1860s, Jump created three cartoons that featured the Emperor and the dogs in the same scene — and that these cartoons have been influential in associating the Emp with Bummer and Lazarus in the popular imagination.
But, Jump was not the first artist to make this connection.
That distinction goes to someone who was not even a cartoonist by profession — but whose lithographed and published cartoon, apparently sold as a standalone sheet, showing Bummer and Lazarus sitting near Emperor Norton predates by as much as a year or more Jump's earliest cartoon showing these characters together.
This is the story of the artist and the cartoon that appear to be Edward Jump's conceptual influencer.
That we are aware, this is the first time the story has been told.
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In September 1864, a San Francisco correspondent’s letter that included a brief description of Emperor Norton was published in a New York–based Unitarian weekly, then was reprinted 10 newspapers across 9 states.
Eleven years later, in July 1875, another New York publication, Scribner’s Monthly, published a lengthy article by a veteran columnist of the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin. This piece included a snapshot of the Emperor that was excerpted and reprinted in no fewer than 26 papers across 10 states.
We find only one other “write-up” of Emperor Norton published during his lifetime that was reprinted in more than 5 papers.
The description originally appeared in a 2-column-long San Francisco correspondent’s letter published in the Chicago Tribune of 26 February 1877.
An abridged version of the letter that includes the thumbnail sketch of the Emperor was reprinted in 7 newspapers in Kansas, Minnesota, and Missouri.
Appraisals of Emperor Norton penned by short-term correspondents often were less generous than those of San Francisco’s own journalists. Happily, the correspondent of 1877 was more sympathetic than the one of 1864.
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Even at the most storied research libraries and historical societies, the catalog records for artifacts like early photographs — including basic details like the date and the photographer — can be notoriously unreliable.
Often, these records were created decades, even a century or more, ago — long before the advent of library science as a professional research discipline — and have not been reassessed or updated since then. Digitized, perhaps, but basically fossilized and forgotten. What this means for researchers is that catalog info can be little more than a starting point.
For the last decade, The Emperor Norton Trust has used 1864 as the date for two photographs of the Emperor that appear to have been taken during the same sitting. The date was from the catalog record of a major research institution — and, based on a variety of contextual factors, it was the only credible citation we were able to find.
Recently, we noted that the institution has removed this citation. This, together with our discovery of a new piece of evidence potentially relating to the photographs, prompted us to take a second look at the date question.
As a result of our investigation, we have revised our date for these photos.
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Although Joshua Norton was perfectly serious in declaring himself Emperor in 1859, it generally is agreed that the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin published his original Proclamation as a joke.
It didn’t take long for other newspapers — in San Francisco, yes, but eventually across California and Nevada — to get in on the game of burlesquing the Emperor with fake stories about — and fake proclamations by — him.
William Drury may have been the first, in his 1986 biography of the Emperor, to point out that the Daily Alta California — in particular, the Alta’s city editor Albert S. Evans, pen name "Fitz Smythe" — was the real "pacesetter" in this, taking the mantle from the Bulletin and fully milking the comic potential of the Emperor’s persona.
Recently, I stumbled upon a couple of pieces of evidence — not mentioned in Drury’s account — that other newspapers at the time recognized the Daily Alta and Evans as tops in the field!
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For many years, Italian produce farmers in San Francisco had set up a vegetable market on Sansome Street between Clay and Washington. But, in late 1873, things were coming to a head in a long-simmering public dispute about whether the market should be allowed to stay there — and, if not, where it should go.
In November 1873, Emperor Norton weighed in with a Proclamation calling for the market to be moved from Sansome, a public street, to a new purpose-created public square next door.
In effect, the Emperor was seeking to establish the farmers market as a public institution in San Francisco.
This is one of many reasons why the San Francisco Ferry Building clock tower — which rises above what today is the city’s flagship farmers market, at the Ferry Building — should be named EMPEROR NORTON TOWER.
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In 1872 — two years before the first commercially retailed photographic portrait of Emperor Norton — an editor in Oakland wondered whether there might be a market for photographs of the Emperor and how much collectors might be willing to pay.
Five years later, in 1877, a San Francisco paper carried an editorial on the prices paid at a recent New York sale of autographs of U.S. presidents, European monarchs, and other notables. The writer observed that Emperor Norton's signatures were "going at a low rate" and suggested that this would remain the case with the Emperor’s ongoing sales of signed promissory notes continuing to glut the market — but that, in the future, the Emperor’s signature could become a more precious commodity.
In light of the four- and five-figure sums now commanded by photographs and signed promissory notes of Emperor Norton, it’s worth noting these two early — and, we believe, previously unreported — indicators that, even during the Emperor’s lifetime, there were those who saw that the Emperor eventually could find his way to the collector’s market.
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