In 1862, Emperor Norton Signed a Petition Supporting Anti-Party Politics

March 30, 2026 / John Lumea

By February 1856, Joshua Norton was moving away from the Democratic Party, disgusted by corruption in the local party apparatus.

In August 1858, Joshua announced his intention to run as an “independent candidate” for U.S. Congress.

In one of his earliest Proclamations as Emperor, he lamented in October 1859 “that open violation of the laws are constantly occurring, caused by mobs, parties, factions and undue influence of political sects.”

Later, in 1869 and 1876, Emperor Norton issued Proclamations dissolving and abolishing the Democratic and Republican parties.

And in July 1875, he gave an impromptu speech at a “No Party” forum held at the Mercantile Library.

Comes a new discovery: In April 1862, Emperor Norton signed a petition calling on the “anti-party” People’s Party to begin the process of nominating candidates for the local San Francisco offices in the upcoming election.

This may be the earliest documented record of Emperor Norton — as Emperor — formally aligning himself with a specific independent approach to politics.

It may also signal a pivot towards a greater engagement with local and state issues after an initial period, 1859–62, in which the Emperor seemed more interested in national and international affairs.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / politics, independent, anti-party, no party, People's Party, Democratic Party, Second Committee of Vigilance, petition, signature, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, 1855, 1856, 1858, 1859, 1862, 1869, 1875, 1876

Two Houseworth Postscripts

June 18, 2025 / John Lumea

This follow-up to my August 2015 article, “The Houseworth Photographs,” updates the record of photographs of Emperor Norton by the studio of Thomas Houseworth & Co. with (a) a much better — if still flawed — copy of a c.1874 photograph and (b) a sharper date for a later Houseworth photo of the Emp.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / photographs, photographer, photography, Thomas Houseworth & Co., Thomas Houseworth, 9 Montgomery Street, 12 Montgomery Street, celebrity portrait, society portrait, cabinet card, San Francisco directories, Society of California Pioneers, Gino Robair, 1872, 1873, 1875, 1876, 1877, 2015

Emperor Norton Through the Eyes of a Young San Francisco Artist in 1879

May 14, 2025 / John Lumea

In 1879, an 18-year-old Charles Andrew Gunnison (1861–1897) took a trek across the United States from his home in San Francisco, visiting several cities on the Eastern seaboard and venturing up to Montreal and Quebec City before returning to San Francisco via Panama and Central America.

Gunnison brought with him an autograph book that he converted into a sketchbook to help him record what he saw.

One of the last sketches in the book — done as Gunnison arrived back home at the end of his trip — is of Emperor Norton.

Apparently drawn in December 1879, a month before the Emperor’s death in January 1880, this is one of the last (and possibly the last) extant artistic rendering of Emperor Norton — painting, sketch, or otherwise — done during the Emperor’s lifetime.

A separate sketch on the same page and another sketch on the previous page provide clues that reflect the anti-Chinese mood of San Francisco —and possibly also of the artist — in 1879. Given the Emperor's own long-standing defense of the Chinese, the juxtaposed sketches make for a telling — if unintended — commentary.

Charles Gunnison died only 18 years later. One hopes that, if — in 1879 — a late-teen Gunnison did share in the prevailing anti–Chinese attitudes of 1879 San Francisco, he was able to wrest free of those attitudes before the city did.

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categories / ARENA, Research, Original sources
tags / Art, drawing, sketch, sketchbook, pencil, Charles Andrew Gunnison, travel, Isaac Smith Kalloch, California Workingmen's Party, Denis Kearney, mayor, Chinese, San Francisco Illustrated Wasp, cartoon, 1875, 1879, 1880

Was Emperor Norton Channeling George Washington?

May 06, 2025 / John Lumea

On the verge of leaving office in March 1797, George Washington in September 1796 issued a Farewell Address — initially published in a Philadelphia paper and thereafter widely distributed. Washington's overriding concern in the address was the danger of factions and what he called "the spirit of party."

Sixty-four years later, in February 1860 — in the nearest thing to an "inaugural" address for his nascent Empire — Emperor Norton sounded the same themes.

Indeed, by 1856, Joshua Norton was showing the interest and inclination towards "independent" and "No Party" platforms and candidates that would shape his reign as Emperor.

But, there are other parallels between Norton and Washington — the date each chose to issue a defining statement for publication; their use of the same key words and phrases — that make it worth asking whether the Emperor's apparent echo of Washington is more than a coincidence.

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categories / Research, Commentary, Proclamations, Original sources
tags / party, faction, independent, George Washington, farewell address, September 17, 1787, 1796, 1856, 1858, 1859, 1860, 1869, 1875, 1876

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

Let the Emperor Wear What He Wants

May 26, 2024 / John Lumea

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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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / dress, uniform, eccentric, law, society, Eliza Hurd De Wolf, Amasa Lord, W.H.L. Barnes, Daily Dramatic Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune, 1866, 1867, 1874, 1875

Emperor Norton Status Report, Midwest Edition

March 20, 2024 / John Lumea

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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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / newspapers, media coverage, national, reputation, fame, Oscar Lennox Misch, Chicago Tribune, Midwest, 1870, 1875, 1876, 1877

1870s Forecasts of a Market for Emperor Norton Photographs & Signatures

February 18, 2024 / John Lumea

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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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / photograph, signature, autograph, currency, promissory note, market, collector, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, Oakland Daily Transcript, Heritage Auctions, Bonhams, 1872, 1874, 1875, 1877

Emperor Norton Does Art Criticism With a Borrowed Jackknife — And the Crowd Loves It

December 28, 2023 / John Lumea

By 1861 — and for the 18-plus-year remainder of his reign — Emperor Norton was a favorite and enduring subject for San Francisco cartoonists and theater troupes, who found that local audiences enjoyed the good-natured lampooning of their Emperor.

The Emperor himself was less amused — and, there are a couple of oft-cited examples of the Emperor’s expressing his royal displeasure over how he was portrayed in these contexts.

Recently, we uncovered an “episode of displeasure” that is even better documented than the familiar examples.

The occasion was the mounting of an advertisement using Emperor Norton’s image on a construction fence at Montgomery and California Streets. The Emperor borrowed a jackknife; cut out the image of himself; and sliced the image to shreds.

The crowd, as they say, “went wild.”

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources, ARENA
tags / Art, cartoon, comic, caricature, photograph, theater, depiction, portrayal, Safe Deposit Building, Montgomery Street, California Street, advertisement, ad, George Frederick Keller, Eadweard Muybridge, Edward Jump, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, San Francisco Chronicle, Michael Reese, 1861, 1863, 1869, 1873, 1874, 1875

The Emperor Norton National Fame Accelerator of 1875

December 20, 2023 / John Lumea

Although national awareness of Emperor Norton did increase during the 20-year period of his reign — especially after 1870 — it remains the case the virtually all of the press mentions of the Emperor between his self-declaration in September 1859 and his death in January 1880 are from newspapers in California and Nevada.

It appears that fewer than 100 mentions of Emperor Norton during this 20-year period were published in papers outside these two states.

But, within this “national” group of papers outside California and Nevada…

Some 20–25% of the newspaper coverage of the Emperor can be attributed to reprints of an excerpt from a single article in 1875.

The article — written by a New York transplant and veteran editorial staffer of the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin who had arrived in San Francisco 10 years earlier — was published by New York-based Scribner’s Monthly.

The excerpt reached readers in 10 states.

Details and documentation inside.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / newspapers, media coverage, national, reputation, fame, Henry Whitney Bellows, Thomas Starr King, New York Christian Inquirer, Samuel Williams, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, Scribner's Monthly, The New Era, reprint, 1864, 1875

Emperor Norton vs. the Rev. Mr. Hammond

July 12, 2023 / John Lumea

Edward Payson Hammond was a celebrity preacher — a Billy Graham of his day.

Today, Hammond is much less well-known in the annals of American religion than his crusading contemporary, Dwight Lyman Moody.

But, in the 1860s and 1870s, E.P. Hammond was a phenomenon.

In February 1875, Hammond brought his traveling revival road show to San Francisco for what turned out to be a two-month stand.

To get preaching gigs like this, Hammond claimed to produce hundreds — even thousands — of “conversions” everywhere he went.

To gin up these numbers, Hammond’s stock-in-trade was badgering tiny children into believing that they were evil sinners in danger of hellfire.

Emperor Norton was not down with this — and, he found a way to say so in a Proclamation that was published on both sides of San Francisco Bay in March 1875.

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categories / Research, Proclamations, Original sources
tags / Edward Payson Hammond, preacher, revival, conversion, children, child, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Oregon, Andrew L. Stone, Peter Anderson, Pacific Appeal, Oakland Tribune, 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1874, 1875

Emperor Norton Abolished the Democratic and Republican Parties — Twice

April 28, 2023 / John Lumea

Students of Emperor Norton are familiar with his August 1869 Proclamation to “abolish and dissolve the Democratic and Republican parties.”

The Emperor Norton Trust has uncovered a previously unreported second Proclamation, from September 1876, in which the Emperor commands “the dissolution of the Republican and Democratic parties” — although for different reasons than he gave in 1869.

This second Proclamation further reinforces Emperor Norton’s longstanding antipathy to the major parties and to the U.S. party system — a posture which led Joshua Norton to declare himself an “independent candidate” for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1858 and to deliver a brief speech at a public “No Party” forum in 1875.

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categories / Research, Proclamations, Original sources
tags / independent politics, independent candidate, No Party movement, political parties, Democratic Party, Republican Party, San Francisco Herald, Oakland Daily News, 1858, 1869, 1875, 1876

The Time Emperor Norton Lost His Platform But Kept His Dignity

April 12, 2022 / John Lumea

What arguably is one of the most pivotal episodes in Emperor Norton's career has received scant attention.

In December 1870, the Emperor named the Black-owned Pacific Appeal newspaper his "weekly Imperial organ." From then until spring 1875, the Appeal and its editor, Peter Anderson, published some 250 of the Emperor's Proclamations.

But, in May 1875, the Appeal published a Proclamation in which Emperor Norton called out real estate developer Charles Peters for making false promises that were likely to bring harm to the unwitting immigrants who bought his lots in a swampy area at the southern tip of San Francisco that was being billed as Newark.

Peters sued Anderson for libel. Anderson retracted the Proclamation, throwing Emperor Norton under the bus in the process — and forbidding the Emperor from bringing the Appeal any more Proclamations. This is why published Proclamations from the Emperor become much more scarce from mid 1875 until his death in January 1880.

It appears that William Drury, in his 1986 biography of Emperor Norton, was the first to publish anything about this. But, apart from reproducing the offending Proclamation and an excerpt from Anderson's retraction, Drury has only a half-page's worth of sentences to spend on the affair.

In giving the matter such short shrift, Drury side-steps the most important questions: What could have prompted Peter Anderson to break with the Emperor in such a way? And, was Emperor Norton actually right about Charles Peters and his real estate scheme?

In short: Bill Drury leaves a big gap at the very point when big questions need answering.

Drawing on newspaper accounts from 1874–76, the following deep-dive seeks to close the gap and finds that Emperor Norton looks the best of all who were involved — in part, because he was utterly true to himself.

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categories / Research, Proclamations, Original sources
tags / Newark, Newark Land Company, Newark Land Association, Charles R. Peters, Charles Peters, Pacific Appeal, lawsuit, libel, land, real estate, immigrants, Oakland Tribune, Oakland Daily Transcript, William Drury, 1874, 1875, 1876

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

An 1875 Photo Captures the Flavor of the Street Adjacent to Emperor Norton's Publisher and Printer

September 14, 2021 / John Lumea

Much of the relevant background is in the title.

The rare, fine-grained, wonderfully textured photograph, a stereoview, is by J.J. Reilly.

It's beautiful.

What's left is to get your bearings and see the view — which you can do by clicking below!

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources
tags / San Francisco, photography, photograph, stereoview, Sansome Street, Commercial Street, Clay Street, Niantic Building, Pacific Appeal, Cuddy & Hughes, J.J. Reilly, 1875

Emperor Norton, the Phoenix and the Branding of San Francisco

September 02, 2020 / John Lumea

Photographs of Emperor Norton show that, just as the Emperor had a favorite walking stick, he also had a favorite hat pin — in the shape of a spread-winged bird.

Artists in the Emperor’s day painted and drew him wearing this pin.

It’s not surprising that contemporary San Francisco artists have rendered the bird as a phoenix.

Alas — spoiler alert! — it turns out that Emperor Norton did not wear a phoenix in his hat; the Emperor’s bird was a military American eagle.

But, this particular eagle does trace its heraldic roots to a phoenix — albeit it not a San Francisco one.

The fascinating story of how the phoenix of Scottish heraldry was transformed into the eagle of U.S. government iconography traces through the righteous Scottish cause of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Continental Army coat buttons of George Washington and the design of the Great Seal of the United States.

One could say that Emperor Norton was wearing an eagle and a phoenix all at once: appropriate for an Emperor of the United States whose Seat was in the cool, grey city of love.

Pull up a chair!

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categories / Research, Original sources, Legacy
tags / hat plate, hat pin, photographs, art, phoenix, eagle, shield, three arrows, heraldry, Scotland, Scottish, George Washington, Continental Army, buttons, inaugural buttons, Robert Scot, Great Seal of the United States, U.S. Army, insignia, headgear, bell crown cap, light artillery cap, George Frederick Keller, Oscar Kunath, Michael Morgan, Jeremy Fish, Sam Flores, 1852, 1859, 1869, 1874, 1875, 1877, 1879, 2010, 2015, 2016

Emperor Norton, Political Independent, Gives a Speech in 1875

April 24, 2020 / John Lumea

Here, we document our discovery of something we’ve never seen reported elsewhere: Emperor Norton’s attendance and participation at a “no party” political meeting held at the Mercantile Library, San Francisco, on 13 July 1875.

The Emperor’s role is included in next-day accounts from two San Francisco newspapers — the Daily Evening Bulletin and the Daily Alta California — as well as in a San Francisco dispatch that appeared in the Los Angeles Evening Express.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Places
tags / politics, independence, no party, Mercantile Library, Evening Bulletin, Daily Alta California, 1875

Emperor Norton, Friend of Immigrants

March 13, 2019 / John Lumea

In April 1875, Emperor Norton issued one of his most important Proclamations on the welcome, sympathy, assistance, protection and care of immigrants.

Thirty years later, in September 1908, this Proclamation was bumped to the top of the pile, when the Emperor’s portraitist Addie Ballou included it — unsourced — in a brief memoir of her experience of the Emperor that she wrote for the San Francisco Call.

Alas, the Proclamation has languished in unmentioned obscurity for most of the last 110 years — not least, because it has not been publicly sourced and documented as authentic.

This, we do here.

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categories / Original sources, Proclamations, Research
tags / immigration, immigrants, Pacific Appeal, Addie Ballou, San Francisco Call, Mechanics' Institute, Mechanics' Pavilion, Jonathan Robert Pamplin, 1875, 1908

"My Dear Lotta": Emperor Norton's Telegram to Lotta Crabtree

February 28, 2018 / John Lumea

Of the 14 telegraph message forms in the California Historical Society's collection of Emperor Norton artifacts, most appear to be fakes written and signed by prankish telegraph operators. But, one appears to be authentic and in the Emperor's hand. It's a message from Emperor Norton to Lotta Crabtree, commending her on the recently dedicated fountain that she has commissioned as a gift to the City of San Francisco — and bestowing upon her the imperial title "Lady of the Fountain."

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categories / Original sources, Places, Research
tags / telegram, Lotta Crabtree, Lotta's Fountain, 1875, California Historical Society

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