The Emperor Norton Trust

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

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

Filtering by Tag: Merchant Street

Emperor Norton at Sorbier's

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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Joshua Norton at the Transamerica Pyramid

For some 35 years, students of the Emperor Norton story have followed William Drury’s account, in his 1986 biography of the Emperor, of the events surrounding Joshua Norton’s declaration of himself as Emperor on 17 September 1859.

According to Drury: George Fitch was editor of the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin on that day. Fitch’s office was in an upstairs room at 517 Clay Street. Joshua Norton marched his Proclamation into Fitch’s office that morning, and Fitch published it that afternoon.

But, that’s not how it went.

The Bulletin didn’t have an outpost on Clay Street until 1861. In 1859, the paper’s only offices were on Montgomery Street — on a site now occupied by the Transamerica pyramid.

And: Although George Fitch was a partner at the Bulletin in September 1859, he didn’t emerge as “the editor” — as the one with the power to decide what would and would not be published in the paper — until later.

That power resided with the person who actually was the editor on the day Joshua Norton appeared: James W. Simonton.

Read on for another course correction from The Emperor Norton Trust.

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