The Emperor Norton Trust

TO HONOR THE LIFE + ADVANCE THE LEGACY OF JOSHUA ABRAHAM NORTON

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

Filtering by Tag: 1888

Glimpsing 16 O’Farrell: The Building Where 10,000 Paid Their Last Respects to the Emperor Norton

November 08, 2026  /  John Lumea

Attentive students of the Emperor Norton story know that, when the Emperor died on 8 January 1880, his body was brought to the City Morgue at 16 O'Farrell Street.

It was in a back room of the morgue, in this building at the east end of O'Farrell, that a reported 10,000 people came to view the Emperor in the morning and early afternoon hours of January 10.

One of the other two tenants of this building — the third was the City Coroner's office — was Lockhart & Porter undertakers, where the Emperor's funeral took place at about 2:30 p.m.

In early 2021, The Emperor Norton Trust was able to establish that 16 O'Farrell was at the northwest corner of O'Farrell Street and Bagley Place — the latter of which today is known as Security Pacific Place. 

But we — nor anyone else, as far as we know — have ever been able to find a photographic record of the building.

Until now. 

Shown here for the first time in this context is a photograph we recently uncovered, taken in the mid to late 1880s, that provides an admittedly blurry — but nonetheless real — view of the unremarkable two-story building where Emperor Norton lay in state in the hours before being laid to rest at the Masonic Cemetery. 

We use the photo as a springboard for a deep-dive into the history of this and several neighboring buildings and sites in the period between the mid 1860s and the earthquake and fires of April 1906 — further illuminating the street scene on the Emperor's funeral day.

We hope you enjoy the results of our "dig" as much as we enjoyed the digging.

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources
tags / funeral, 16 O'Farrell Street, photograph, O'Farrell Street, Bagley Place, Dupont Street, Fleet Street, Grant Avenue, Market Street, boarding house, lodging house, Lockhart & Porter, San Francisco City Morgue, San Francisco City Coroner, Levi L. Dorr, George A. Lockhart, William H. Porter, Shiels Building, Kohler & Chase Building, The Rendezvous Saloon, John Plagemann, George Bernhard, Benjamin Curtaz, Curtaz Building, Hammam bath house, Madame Blanche Oulif, Morris Lichtenstein, Cohnreich Bros., James C. Sellers, Phelan Building, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, earthquake, 1864, 1868, 1869, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1893, 1906, Cafe Odeon, George W. Leek, Sanders & Johnson, infographic

Joshua Norton and the McAllister Brothers

July 15, 2022  /  John Lumea

The new HBO series The Gilded Age, from Downton Abbey creator and writer Julian Fellowes, is introducing a new generation to the historical figure of Ward McAllister. Famous for being an arbiter of New York’s “high society” of the 1860s–90s, McAllister used his list of “the 400” to advise Caroline Schermerhorn Astor a.k.a. “Mrs. Astor” on whom should be “in” and whom should be “out.”

But, before arriving in New York in 1858, Ward had spent the dawning years of the 1850s in San Francisco, where he lived in the same house with his older brother Hall McAllister, who arrived in the city in 1849 and remained until his death in 1888 — a period during he which he became of the most eminent and respected attorneys of his generation.

It’s very likely that, in the early 1850s, Joshua Norton — then at the height of his prosperity and influence — socialized with the brothers McAllister in their home, together with his friend Joseph Eastland, a founding partner of the company that went on to become PG&E.

In fact: It was Hall McAllister who — in 1853–54 — represented Joshua’s opponents in the rice affair.

It’s a fascinating set of connections that (a) reveals Joshua Norton to have been a guest — but never really a member — of a world of privilege and power that would become closed to him once his life took a different turn, even as it (b) shines new light on one member of that world who never forgot him.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / Hall McAllister, Ward McAllister, Matthew Hall McAllister, Pike Street, attorney, lawyer, judge, The 400, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, Mrs. Astor, Joseph G. Eastland, Joseph Eastland, Ruiz v. Norton, 1849, 1850, 1852, 1853, 1854, 1855, 1863, 1865, 1879, 1888, 1895, 1904

What Did Andrew Smith Hallidie Know About Joshua Norton's Original Funding?

September 29, 2020  /  John Lumea

The conventional “wisdom” is that Joshua Norton arrived in San Francisco in 1849 with a $40,000 bequest from the estate of his father, John Norton, who had died in 1848.

But, if Norton arrived with $40,000, he almost certainly didn’t get it from his father — who had died insolvent and broke.

So, what was the source of Joshua Norton’s original funding — $40,000 or otherwise?

Andrew Smith Hallidie, the “father of the cable car,” knew Joshua Norton as Emperor — and probably before that as well.

In 1888, Hallidie published an article suggesting that Norton had arrived in San Francisco as a “representative and confidant” of English backers.

This is quite different from the account one often hears.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Open Questions
tags / Andrew Smith Hallidie, Overland Monthly, John Norton, South America, Rio de Janeiro, Valparaiso, 1888

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