An Editor Whose Coverage of Emperor Norton Extended Beyond the Pages of His Newspaper

December 08, 2025 / John Lumea

Probably the most notorious fabricator of fake proclamations and fake tales of Emperor Norton was Albert S. Evans — editor of the Daily Alta California newspaper from 1863 until his death in 1872.

We've unearthed a previously unreported little cache of Evans's Norton tales — which appeared in Evans's late 1870 Mexico travel memoir Our Sister Republic.

One question that hovers over our discovery...

Did Emperor Norton's discovery of Evans's misrepresentation of him in this book play a role in the Emperor's decision, a couple of months later, to designate a different paper, the Pacific Appeal, as the official platform for his public communications?

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / Albert S. Evans, Daily Alta California, editor, book, Our Sister Republic, travelogue, memoir, Mexico, William H. Seward, stories, tales, fake, Pacific Appeal, Frederick Coombs, Freddy Coombs, George Washington II, 1864, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1869, 1870, 1871, Mechanics' Institute

Emperor Norton Was Tuned in to Women's Suffrage Years Before He Signed an 1878 Petition in Favor of It

November 18, 2025 / John Lumea

It long has appeared that Emperor Norton’s reputation for supporting women’s right to vote rests entirely on his having signed an October 1878 petition advocating for the right.

Comes our new discovery that the Emperor attended a women's suffrage convention in San Francisco seven years earlier — in May 1871.

Emperor Norton's apparent early interest and engagement on suffrage raises the question: Why has there yet to surface a Proclamation in which the Emperor offers his take on women’s right to vote?

Included here — in addition to the discovery from 1871 — are new details about the 1878 petition and what we believe is the first publication of (a) images of this petition, including Emperor Norton's signature, and (b) a link to the petition that identifies the Emperor's connection to it.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Places
tags / woman, women, suffrage, vote, convention, petition, signature, California Woman Suffrage Association, Pacific Slope Woman Suffrage Convention, Pacific Hall, Pacific Music Hall, California Theatre, California Theater, Lyceum of Self-Culture, Common Sense (journal), 1869, 1870, 1871, 1874, 1878, California Constitutional Convention of 1878–79

Is This Really Joshua Norton?

July 16, 2025 / John Lumea

For nearly a century, the collection of the Society of California Pioneers has included a photograph whose subject has been identified — including by the authors of the two published biographies of Emperor Norton and by The Emperor Norton Trust — as Joshua Abraham Norton.

There are many good reasons for believing that the gentleman in the photo is not, in fact, Joshua Norton — and no good reasons, it seems, for continuing to believe that it is.

Herewith, a reassessment.

3 Likes

categories / Research, Original sources
tags / photograph, Society of California Pioneers, Charles Beebe Turrill, daguerrotype, collodion, fashion, jacket, beard, friendly muttonchops, hulihee, Civil War, Ambrose Burnside, Kalakaua, Allen Stanley Lane, William Drury, 1851, 1861, 1869, 1871, 1878, 1927, 1928, 1939, 1986

When Emperor Norton Became Protector of Mexico

October 18, 2024 / John Lumea

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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categories / Research, Proclamations, Original sources
tags / Mexico, Emperor of the United States and Mexico, Protector of Mexico, Napoleon III, Maximilian I, Robert Ernest Cowan, Albert Dressler, Allen Stanley Lane, William Drury, Emperor Norton Memorial Association, Woodlawn Cemetery, headstone, 1860, 1861, 1862, 1864, 1865, 1866, 1871, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1879, 1923, 1927, 1934, 1938, 1939, 1986

Emperor Norton at Sorbier's

June 16, 2024 / John Lumea

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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categories / Research, Original sources, Places
tags / Sorbier's Restaurant, Jules E. Sorbier, Jules Sorbier, International Restaurant, Occidental Restaurant, Commercial Street, Sacramento Street, Washington Street, Merchant Street, breakfast, Louise Bacon Sorbier, menu, photograph, Japan Weekly Mail, Mining and Scientific Press, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, Samuel Williams, 1862, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1874, 1875, 1877, 1880, 1910

Emperor Norton on the Crest of the Farmers Market Wave

February 24, 2024 / John Lumea

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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categories / Research, Original sources, Proclamations
tags / vegetable, produce, vegetable market, produce market, Italian, Sansome Street, Market Street, farmers market, public market, Daily Alta California, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, 1871, 1873, 1874

Celebrated Humorist in 1871: Emperor Norton Is Among “The Geniuses That Frisco Has Sent Broadcast to the World"

January 22, 2024 / John Lumea

In June 1849, English-born composer, singer, dramatic recitalist, impressionist, travel writer, and humorist Stephen Charnock Massett (1819–1898) gave a performance at a schoolhouse on Portsmouth Plaza, San Francisco, that is credited as the first professional show in the city.

Twenty-two years later, Massett was a bonafide national, international — and San Francisco-identified — celebrity who went by his pen and stage name “Jeems Pipes, of Pipesville.”

In April 1871, while Massett was living in San Francisco, the city’s Daily Alta newspaper published a column of his, in which he characterized the Emperor Norton as one of “the geniuses that Frisco has sent broadcast to the world.”

The other cultural exports on Massett’s list include Mark Twain, Bret Harte, and Charles Warren Stoddard.

Read on to learn more about the fascinating Stephen Massett and his 1871 column giving props to the Emperor.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / Stephen Charnock Massett, Stephen C. Massett, Stephen Massett, Jeems Pipes of Pipesville, Jeems Pipes, Pipesville, Daily Alta California, Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, Frisco, Portsmouth Square, 1849, 1854, 1868, 1871

Beinecke Library and The Emperor Norton Trust Partner to Correct Description of Carte de Visite

April 14, 2023 / John Lumea

At the suggestion and request of The Emperor Norton Trust, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University has corrected its description of a carte de visite photograph by Jacob Shew that was misidentified as being possibly of Emperor Norton.

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categories / Research, News
tags / carte de visite, photograph, Jacob Shew, Beinecke Library, Yale University, Carl Mautz, catalog, record, correction, update, 1860, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1870, 1871, 2023

The Sporting Emperor Norton

March 28, 2023 / John Lumea

Emperor Norton tried his hand at riding a bike — roller skating — even jumping rope.

Later, the Emperor was a regular attendee at everything from horse races to endurance walking marathons to wrestling tournaments.

Here’s a first effort at documenting an underappreciated “sporting” thread in the Emperor’s story.

This includes:

many new details about known episodes (velocipede; skating), 1869–72
several new episodes, 1873–79

Also includes documentation of what may be the last reported sighting of Emperor Norton.

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources
tags / sport, tournament, race, competition, feat, amusement, Mechanics' Pavilion, Union Hall, Woodward's Gardens, Badger's Grand Central Park, Bay District Fair Ground, Platt's Music Hall, Platt's Hall, velocipede, boneshaker, roller skating, skates, jump rope, horse race, walking, wrestling, rink, pavilion, Eadweard Muybridge, Carleton Watkins, John Armstrong, 1869, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1879

Emperor Norton at Swimley's

February 24, 2023 / John Lumea

Joshua Norton made many visits to Sacramento in the early 1850s.

But, after declaring himself Emperor in 1859, his first imperial visit to California’s capital was in December 1863.

By 1863, Emperor Norton already was becoming a legend.

And, on this 1863 visit, he is reported to have dined at a restaurant run by someone who was becoming a legend of his own.

The restaurant was the Cincinnati. The proprietor was William Swimley. And the eatery — known locally as “Swimley’s” — was half-way through a 20-year run as “oldest, neatest, best and cheapest” food spot in Sacramento.

The building where Swimley’s was located from c.1861 until its closing in 1871 occupies a fascinating place in the history of early Sacramento.

In the course of researching this wonderful story, we’ve found evidence that the building is older than has been believed.

Deep documentation and rare photographs included.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Places
tags / Sacramento, Cincinnati Restaurant, Charles Franklin Swimley, Charles F. Swimley, Swimley's, Swimley's Boarders, 21 K Street, 25 K Street, Second Street, Verandah Hotel, Union Hotel, James Lansing, Union Hotel annex, restaurant, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 1850, 1852, 1853, 1855, 1856, 1858, 1859, 1861, 1863, 1864, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1871, 1873, 1879, 1940, 1960, 1980s

Emperor Norton’s Residence, the Eureka Lodgings, Was Not Located (Exactly) Where You Think It Was

September 26, 2022 / John Lumea

Over the last 25 years or so, a consensus has emerged among those attuned to San Francisco history — and particularly among Nortonophiles — that the former site of the Eureka Lodgings — where Emperor Norton is documented to have lived between 1864/1865 and his death in 1880 — is the privately owned public open space (POPOS) known as Empire Park, located at 642 Commercial Street between Montgomery and Kearny Streets.

That's been the consensus.

But, a careful analysis of two key bodies of evidence — (1) photographs of this stretch of Commercial Street taken between 1877 and 1906, and (2) Sanborn fire insurance and official San Francisco block (property) maps from the generation or two before and after the earthquake and fires of 1906 — reveal the Empire Park designation to be mistaken.

The Eureka Lodgings was located on Commercial Street between Montgomery and Kearny — just not on that site.

In the attached deeply researched and documented — and extensively illustrated — article, I provide:

1) Confirmation — for the first time, I believe — of the visual ID of the Eureka Lodgings building, using photographs from during and after Emperor Norton's lifetime. (Don’t miss the fabulous detail in these new hi-res scans from 1878, c.1892–94 and 1906 — worth the price of admission!)

2) A new location for the former site of the Eureka that better accords with the historical record.

It's a deep dive — so, pull up a chair!

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categories / Research, Original sources, Places
tags / Eureka Lodgings, 624 Commercial, A. Lietz Company, William Meakin, machine shop, Grabhorn Press, Empire Day, United States Sub-Treasury, 612 Commercial, San Francisco Morning Call, Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain, The Hebrew, Philo Jacoby, Ernest Jacoby, Bret Harte, Eadweard Muybridge, panorama, Allen Hancock Knight, Treu Ergeben Hecht, T.E. Hecht, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Sanborn map, block map, 1853, 1864, 1865, 1871, 1872, 1877, 1878, 1880, 1887, 1892, 1894, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1918, 1990, 2000, Empire House

Emperor Norton's Proclamations on the Chinese, 1868–1878

March 14, 2022 / John Lumea

One of Emperor Norton’s most abiding concerns during his reign, 1859–1880, was the unjust treatment of the Chinese. For a period of more than a decade during the second half of his reign, the Emperor flagged his opposition to discrimination against the Chinese in the courts, the workplace and society — and to the physical violence that self-empowered demagogues and thugs on the West Coast meted out on Chinese during the 1860s and ‘70s.

Here, as a resource, are the published Proclamations of Emperor Norton on the Chinese that we’ve discovered so far — as they originally appeared in the papers of the Emperor’s time. There are thirteen Proclamations — plus a reference to a fourteenth.

Almost certainly, this is not an exhaustive list. Many, many issues of newspapers from this period are lost. And, even for the many scanned issues that are included in the current digital databases, the limitations of optical character recognition (OCR) technology mean that even searches on obvious terms like “Norton,” “Emperor,” “Chinese” and “China” don’t produce every possible result.

We’ll continue to add to this list as new information comes to light.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Proclamations
tags / China, Chinese, immigration, courts, labor, society, Denis Kearney, 1868, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1878

The Emperor of Brooklyn, Part 2

February 18, 2022 / John Lumea

In 2015, we published a piece, “The Emperor of Brooklyn,” about Emperor Norton’s connection to Brooklyn, Calif., an area southeast of Lake Merritt, in Oakland, that was an independent township from 1856 until it was annexed to Oakland in late 1872.

The main documentary evidence for this connection was a couple of Proclamations that were published in the San Francisco-based Pacific Appeal. The Emperor had designated the Appeal his as his “imperial gazette” in December 1870 — and, ultimately, the paper published some 250 of his Proclamations. But, these particular Proclamations were datelined “Brooklyn.”

It turns out that these and other Proclamations were published simultaneously — sometimes originally — in a short-lived Brooklyn weekly called the Brooklyn Home Journal and Alameda County Advertiser.

Read on to learn about this newspaper; exactly where it was located; Emperor Norton’s visits to the paper’s offices; and the respect the paper paid to the Emperor in 1872.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Places, Proclamations
tags / Brooklyn Calif., Oakland, Brooklyn Home Journal, Brooklyn Hall, Walker Street, Thirteenth Avenue, Jackson Street, Eleventh Street, 1871, 1872, 1873

Emperor Norton & The Great Unknown: Two Eccentrics Meet in a Rare Illustration from 1871

May 15, 2019 / John Lumea

By the time Max Cohnheim arrived in San Francisco in 1867, at around age 41 — Cohnheim had immigrated to the United States in 1851 — he already was a noted German-language writer, editor, playwright and sometime actor of political satire.

On 17 June 1871, Cohnheim debuted his latest satirical magazine, the San Francisco Humorist. The inaugural issue featured a comic illustration of the Emperor Norton conferring with another well-known street character of the day — a dandy who styled himself The Great Unknown.

It seems likely that the Emperor and the Unknown at least would have been acquainted with one another.

Read on to learn more about the Great Unknown and to see this early illustration of Emperor Norton — an illustration, drawn during the Emperor’s lifetime, that probably has lain in obscurity for decades and probably has seen by very few people at all since it first was published nearly 150 years ago.

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categories / Original sources, ARENA, Research
tags / San Francisco Humorist, Max Cohnheim, The Great Unknown, Friedrich Wilhelm Frohm, William Fromm, Charles Fromm, George Daniels Morse, Morse's Palace of Art, California Theater, William Horace Lindgard, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Kathleen Neils Conzen, comic, 1871

Emperor Norton at a Pro-Civil Rights Lecture, March 1868

February 24, 2019 / John Lumea

Emperor Norton’s on-point attendance at an early event of the Order of Freedom’s Defenders — a Unionist-Republican political club dedicated to preserving Lincoln's legacy; advancing Reconstruction; electing Grant as President; and securing the Constitutional protections necessary to guarantee the civil rights of African-Americans — can be seen as “of a piece” with the Emperor’s broader commitment to African-American equality.

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categories / Original sources, Places, Research
tags / Order of Freedom's Defenders, General Oscar Hugh La Grange, Platt's Music Hall, Union, Republican, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Reconstruction, civil rights, San Francisco Examiner, Peter Anderson, Fifteenth Amendment, Pacific Appeal, Proclamations, 1868, 1869, 1871, 1874

Emperor Norton, c.1871–72

June 27, 2017 / John Lumea

A little more than half of the 17 extant photographs of Emperor Norton have reliable dates attached. In this context, "date" means year.

Armed with one historical lead, a good set of links to early San Francisco directories, some basic detective skills and a little patience, we set out to pin down the date of a well-known photograph of Emperor Norton that had no date.

We found it.

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categories / Original sources, Research
tags / photograph, photography, Tuttle & Johnson, William Nutting Tuttle, Charles Wallace Jacob Johnson, Cosmopolitan Art Gallery, 1871, 1872

Notes on His Majesty's Printers

May 02, 2017 / John Lumea

It is known that Emperor Norton had his imperial promissory notes — his scrip — printed for him. But, rarely if ever discussed in any detail — even among collectors and connoisseurs of historical currency — are the particulars: Who were these printers? What were their associations? How did they get their "gigs" with the Emperor, and how did they fit into his world? Exactly when and where did they do their printing for him?

This exploration takes a close look at the two firms that are known to have printed Emperor Norton's bonds, between 1870 and 1880: Cuddy & Hughes and Charles A. Murdock & Co. It unearths:

some of the earliest newspaper references to the Emperor's scrip — including by the Emperor himself;
rarely seen photographic views of the building where Cuddy & Hughes, the Emperor's first printer, operated;
a personal recollection of the Emperor that his second printer, Charles Murdock, published in 1921;
directory listings; and...

Much other detail that sharpens the focus on this most basic episode of the Emperor's story — the printing and selling of scrip — and the key behind-the-scenes players that helped to make it happen.

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categories / Original sources, Places, Research
tags / printers, Cuddy & Hughes, John Cuddy, Edward C. Hughes, Charles A. Murdock, note, bond, scrip, Pacific Appeal, Peter Anderson, 511 Sansome, Sansome, Merchant, Niantic Hotel, Niantic, Robert J. Chandler, Donald Kagin, James R. Smith, Carleton Watkins, 1870, 1871, 1875, 1877, 1878, 1880

"Baby Face Norton" Is Baby-Faced — But Not Norton

December 29, 2016 / John Lumea

New Campaign research seems to confirm that a photograph sometimes thought to be of a young Emperor Norton is not the Emperor but just a boy with a military costume and a fake beard.

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categories / Research
tags / photography, photographs, Jacob Shew, Carl Mautz, Beinecke Library, Yale University, Peter E. Palmquist, Thomas R. Kailbourn, 1860, 1867, 1871

The Original Public Advocate

September 13, 2015 / John Lumea

In the current San Francisco mayoral election, one of the challengers to sitting mayor Ed Lee has offered an anti-corruption plan that includes a proposal that San Francisco create a new elected office for a Public Advocate.

Other major cities already have Public Advocates; the level of authority depends on the city.

But the general idea is that the Public Advocate is a kind of official watchdog — someone who helps to ensure that the citizens are being treated fairly; that government agencies and private companies are properly maintaining basic utilities and services like streets, public transit, water, electricity and gas (and not gouging the people in the process); and that corruption that affects the general populace is called out wherever it is found.

Sound familiar? It should.

The original Public Advocate is Emperor Norton.

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categories / Commentary, Proclamations, Original sources, Events, Tributes, Research
tags / Public Advocate, New York City, Mark Green, Bill de Blasio, Ralph Nader, Empire Day, Pacific Appeal, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874

Filtering by Tag: 1871