Joshua Norton, Eternal Optimist

November 28, 2023 / John Lumea

Between 1853 and 1859 — a period during which the courts handed him a series of crushing legal defeats that ultimately forced him to declare bankruptcy in 1856 — Joshua Norton engaged in a pattern of making bold public moves that belied — and defied — the harsh facts on the ground.

We recently discovered two early markers in this pattern that appear to have gone undocumented before now:

1) In August 1853 — on the eve of his first major court loss — Joshua offered himself as a Whig candidate for California State Assembly.

2) Under the terms of the Fourth District Court’s ruling of August 1853, the Court ordered the San Francisco sheriff to seize and sell two of Joshua Norton’s properties. In November 1853 — three days before the sale — Joshua took out a newspaper ad seeking a loan for $7,500, possibly part of a gambit to buy back the properties.

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources
tags / Joshua Norton, Joshua Norton & Co., William Sim, Ruiz v. Norton, Fourth District Court, California Supreme Court, candidate, Whig, California State Assembly, property, Sheriff's Sale, William R. Gorham, Pacific Street, Bush Street, Taylor Street, loan, 1853, 1854, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858, 1859

Joshua Norton at the Merchants' Exchange

September 26, 2023 / John Lumea

The period between October 1854 and June 1855 has been an underexplored moment in the Joshua Norton story. But, it's a moment that found Joshua at his steeliest.

He had no choice, really. In October 1854, the California Supreme Court ruled against Joshua in his rice appeal. Foreclosures on his real estate interests were immediate. But, he knew that it was only a matter of time before the Court lowered the heaviest boom — which the Court did when, in May 1855, it ordered Joshua to pay the plaintiffs $20,000.

And yet, during this most precarious of 8 months: Joshua Norton attached himself to the most prestigious new business address in the city. And, he found friends to help him stay afloat and, in one case, to take a crack at launching a major civic infrastructure project — not a bridge, but at the time even more necessary — that the state legislature would not catch up to authorizing for another 5 years.

This is not a man who was going down without a fight.

Read on for a deep-dive into a previously unreported key episode that foreshadowed the Survivor-Emperor to come.

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources
tags / Merchants' Exchange, Battery, Washington Street, Jackson Street, George Sweeny, Theodore Baugh, Sweeny and Baugh, Joshua Norton, California Supreme Court, North Beach, bulkhead, breakwater, seawall, survey, Charles Ordeman, wool, Grisar Byrne & Co., Emile Grisar, Thomas Byrne, E.A. Suwerkrop, 1850, 1851, 1852, 1854, 1855, 1857

Joshua Norton, Pioneer

August 08, 2023 / John Lumea

In Colville’s San Francisco directory of 1856, Joshua Norton listed his “office” address as Pioneer Hall — the Society of California Pioneers’ headquarters and clubhouse on Portsmouth Square, San Francisco.

Joshua declared bankruptcy in 1856, so his living arrangements might have been unstable. But, he was affiliated with a Masonic lodge during this period — while he was not a member of the Pioneers.

So why did he list himself at Pioneer Hall rather than Masonic Hall (on Montgomery Street)?

Here’s a closer look at this episode, in which — apparently — Joshua Norton and the Pioneers were drawn into one anothers’ orbits and revealed things about one another in the process.

Includes a rarely seen 1861 photograph of Pioneer Hall after the Society had added “Pioneers” signage to the top of the building.

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources
tags / Society of California Pioneers, Pioneer Hall, Portsmouth Square, James Lick, Samuel Colville, address, directory, photograph, Overland Monthly, George R. Fardon, 1850, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858, 1862, 1863

The Mixed Economy of the Eureka Lodgings Building of Commercial Street

October 28, 2022 / John Lumea

When one reads that Emperor Norton lived in "the Eureka Lodgings" at "624 Commercial Street," it's tempting to imagine that the Eureka was in a building with one address and one use — and that the Eureka was it.

In fact: There were two buildings on the Eureka site between c.1850 and Emperor Norton's death in 1880, with the Eureka building arriving in 1857. Both buildings had three addresses and a variety of business tenants — with the second of the two buildings hosting the Eureka and two previous hotel/lodging establishments that each occupied only a portion of the top two floors.

At various times during the 1860s ― including while the Emperor was living here between 1864/65 and 1880 — the second building was home to some of the best-known and -respected businesses in early San Francisco history.

Both of the buildings on the Eureka site were located between Montgomery and Kearny Streets, with frontages on both Commercial and Clay Streets.

What follows is, we believe, the first published attempt to establish a "tenant timeline" of the Commercial Street frontages of these buildings between c.1850 and 1880.

Read on for some fascinating history — and some terrific advertisements!

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources
tags / Commercial Street, Montgomery Street, Kearny Street, Eureka Lodgings, Arcade, Arcade Saloon, Hotel Richelieu, Benton House, Aaron Babcock, David Hutchinson, John Cabaniss, A.C. Gamble, Pierre Trapet, Felix Hanlon, Meussdorffer, hatter, Lawrence & Houseworth, John W. Cherry, Contra Costa Laundry, Kohler Chase & Co., directories, advertising, advertisement, Daily Alta California, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, San Francisco Daily Herald, 154 Commercial, 156 Commercial, 158 Commercial, 624 Commercial, 626 Commercial, 628 Commercial, 1851, 1852, 1853, 1854, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, 1864, 1865, 635 Commercial, 637 Commercial, 175 Clay, 177 Clay, 637 Clay

“A New State of Things?” A Pre-Imperial Proclamation from Joshua Norton in July 1859

March 08, 2022 / John Lumea

On 5 July 1859, Joshua Norton took out a paid ad in the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin. The ad was a brief “Manifesto” addressed to the “Citizens of the Union.” It outlined in the broadest terms the national crisis as he saw it and suggested the imperative for action to address this crisis at the most basic level.

This was a little more than two months before Joshua issued his Proclamation — published in the same paper — declaring himself Emperor of the United States on 17 September 1859.

Together with what we already knew — that Joshua Norton continued to run business ads for nearly a year after his insolvency of August 1856; that the San Francisco directories of 1858 and possibly 1859 included listings for him...

The Manifesto is one of three additional pieces of evidence that Joshua Norton remained on the scene — and in San Francisco — in the period between his insolvency and his installation as Emperor.

One of these three traces is an historical “rescue” — reported by Allen Stanley Lane in his 1939 biography of Emperor Norton but apparently forgotten and possibly never documented before now.

The other two — including the Manifesto — are, we believe, discovered, documented and published here for the first time.

This new information should put to rest the conventional wisdom that Joshua Norton "disappeared" for X number of years only to "reemerge" fully transformed on a beatific day in September 1859.

No, there was a process and a path from fall to rise — from Point A to B.

These are three more of that path's public signposts.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Proclamations
tags / manifesto, advertisement, ad, candidate, candidacy, Congress, independent, tax collector, Democratic Party, jury, juror, I. Ferris Waldron, Wells Fargo, directory, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, 1855, 1857, 1858, 1859

The Secret History of One of Emperor Norton's Favorite Free-Lunch Haunts

March 04, 2022 / John Lumea

In his 1986 biography of Emperor Norton, William Drury leaned heavily into anecdotal stories forging an association between the Emperor and Martin & Horton’s, a saloon at the southeast corner of Montgomery and Clay Streets, San Francisco, that was known as a hub for editors and reporters — and also for having one of the better free-lunch counters.

But, it turns out that, in addition to Martin & Horton’s, the building on this corner — which was directly across Clay Street from where the Transamerica pyramid now stands — housed a second saloon — a spot that also was known for its good food and drink, and for catering to the journalists and writers who covered the Emperor in their papers.

Which begs the question: Was Emperor Norton a regular at one saloon? — the other? — or both?

Jumping off from a well-known photograph of the Montgomery and Clay building after it suffered a fire in November 1862, the following research documents in some detail the overlapping histories of these two saloons and their proprietors — whose businesses had space in two different buildings on this corner between 1854 and 1887.

It’s a fascinating story.

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources
tags / Martin & Horton's, Clark Martin, Tom Horton, Faust Cellar, Louis Thiele, George Thiele, Joseph Hug, Montgomery Street, Clay Street, free lunch, 1854, 1857, 1862, 1865, 1870, 1873, 1887

Did Joshua Norton Really Leave San Francisco Between Declaring Himself Bankrupt in 1856 and Emperor in 1859?

May 15, 2017 / John Lumea

Here's a "mystery" about Emperor Norton that may be less mysterious than many seem to think. Despite persistent speculation that Joshua Norton left San Francisco for a period of months or years just before declaring himself Emperor in 1859, the available evidence points to a narrative in which, most likely, the eventual Emperor remained a resident of the City from his arrival until his death.

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categories / Open Questions, Research
tags / 1856, 1857, 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, Tehama House, 255 Kearny, Metropolitan Hotel, business ads, directories, Daily Alta California, Henry Langley

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