The Emperor Norton Trust

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

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

Filtering by Tag: Pacific Appeal

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

The Last Proclamation of Norton I?

April 21, 2023  /  John Lumea

On 24 January 1880, a newspaper in Maine published evidence of an edict that Emperor Norton issued two weeks before his death on January 8th — but that was published the day of his funeral on January 10th — by a surprising source.

Read on for the story of our fascinating discovery — a discovery that raises many new questions! 

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categories / Research, Proclamations, Original sources
tags / Pacific Appeal, Portland (Maine) Daily Express, Maine, Peter Anderson, William H. Carter, Jane Plummer Thurston, Jane P. Thurston, Jane Thurston, Proprietor, reprint, Clay Street, 1879, 1880

Did the Social Drinker Emperor Norton Close Out as a Teetotaler?

March 26, 2023  /  John Lumea

By reputation, Emperor Norton did not drink much. But, he did enjoy the occasional tipple — especially if he was being treated, perhaps by a well-wisher at one of the free-lunch taverns that he often frequented.

Indeed, the Emperor issued at least one Proclamation, in 1874, that called for abstaining from "ardent spirits, as a beverage, except only for medical purposes," and that banned the manufacture, import and sale of these spirits” — but that drew a careful distinction between “ardent” liquor and “malt liquors for the working man, and ‘wine for the stomach’s sake.’”

But, in January 1879, with the temperance movement growing ever more insistent on complete abstinence, with no exceptions or carve-outs, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Emperor Norton signed an abstinence pledge.

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categories / Research, Places, Proclamations, Original sources
tags / drinking, temperance, abstinence, pledge, signature, reform, Platt's Music Hall, Lyceum for Self-Culture, Common Sense (journal), Dashaway Hall, Pacific Appeal, 1874, 1879

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

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, 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

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 on the Front Row of the Fight for Ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment Removing Race as a Barrier to Voting

February 08, 2019  /  John Lumea

In February 1869, the U.S. Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment, which would have the effect of extending the right to vote in the United States to all men of color.

Ten months later — as ratification was making its way through the states, and with California still in the balance — a respected African-American editor and activist named Peter Anderson gave a lecture in favor of the Amendment at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church, on Stockton Street in San Francisco.

Emperor Norton showed up, took a seat down front and was “an attentive listener,” according to the San Francisco Examiner.

The Amendment was ratified in February 1870 — no thanks to California, where the legislature rejected the Amendment against a backdrop of anti-Chinese racism in the state. But, Anderson — the editor of the African-American-owned and -operated Pacific Appeal newspaper — may have remembered Emperor Norton’s solidarity when, late that year, he took on the Emperor as a regular contributor to his pages.

Over the next four-and-a-half years, Anderson would publish — almost always on the front page — some 250 of Emperor Norton’s proclamations, including those insisting on the rights of African-Americans to attend public schools and ride public streetcars.

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categories / Original sources, Research
tags / Fifteenth Amendment, 15th Amendment, Peter Anderson, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, A.M.E. Zion, San Francisco Examiner, Pacific Appeal, Mirror of the Times, Philip Alexander Bell, Harper's Weekly, Burlingame Treaty, Chinese, abolitionist, vote, suffrage, 1869, 1870

Emperor Norton’s Early Engagement With an African-American Editor Reveals the Essence of the Emperor’s Mission — And Foreshadows a Key Relationship

January 21, 2019  /  John Lumea

In 1860, the prominent African-American editor and civil rights activist Philip Alexander Bell arrived in San Francisco from New York City to take up the editor’s chair at the San Francisco Mirror of the Times newspaper —the intellectual and political heartbeat of the emerging movement for African-American equality in California.

One of Bell’s earliest editorial items — published on 20 August of that year — was about Emperor Norton. Within a matter of hours, the Emperor responded in writing, and Bell published the note the following day under the headline “A Pacific Proclamation.”

Twenty months later, Bell would join Peter Anderson, a founder of the Mirror, in converting the paper to a new African-American weekly called The Pacific Appeal. At the end of 1870, Emperor Norton named the Appeal his imperial gazette; and, over the next four-and-a-half years, Anderson, as editor, published some 250 of the Emperor’s proclamations — including his many decrees recognizing the humanity and rights, and demanding fairness and equality, for marginalized and immigrant people, specifically: the Chinese, Native Americans and African-Americans,

The fact that Emperor Norton responded to Philip Bell in 1860 — and what he said — tells us much about the Emperor.

We believe this is the first modern publication of the images and full texts of Bell’s editorial and the Emperor’s reply.

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categories / Original sources, Proclamations, Research
tags / Philip Alexander Bell, Mirror of the Times, Peter Anderson, Pacific Appeal, Elevator, Frederick Douglass

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

"I Would Like to Send That Scalp of Yours to Them."

February 24, 2017  /  John Lumea

Over the course of several months in 1873, Emperor Norton issued a series of Proclamations calling out the exploitation of Native American people; urging a peaceable resolution to the Modoc War that was taking place at the time; and warning that the execution of Captain Jack and other Modoc leaders — a punishment mandated by an Army court-martial and eventually carried out — would only make matters worse.

The Emperor's Bridge Campaign has discovered a May 1873 diary entry — by a 13-year-old boy living in Oakland — that further illuminates the Emperor's take on the Modoc War and on Native Americans in general. 

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categories / Original sources, Places, Proclamations, Research
tags / Modoc War, Modoc, 1873, Alfred Benitz, Oakland, diary, Captain Jack, death penalty, capital punishment, Pacific Appeal, Native American

"Let the Emperor Have Skates — Or Close Up the Rinks!"

November 15, 2015  /  John Lumea

In the late nineteenth century, the popular amusement resort known as Woodward's Gardens — located in the area that now is San Francisco's Mission District — had what has been called the West Coast's largest rollerskating rink. In March 1872, Emperor Norton tried to go for a skate there. The Emperor was turned away. He was not happy.

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categories / Original sources, Proclamations, Places, Research
tags / Robert B. Woodward, Woodward's Gardens, What Cheer House, John C. Fremont, Pacific Appeal

The Emperor of Brooklyn

June 03, 2015  /  John Lumea

"As everyone knows, the Emperor Norton I. visits this city every Monday." So wrote the Oakland Tribune newspaper on 30 December 1879, a little more than a week before the Emperor died on 8 January 1880.

Although Emperor Norton often is pigeonholed as a creature of San Francisco, the truth is that he spent quite a bit of time visiting places that were outside the seat of his Empire. Here's a look at two of those places — Oakland and the adjacent Brooklyn, Calif. — as well as two of the Emperor's proclamations that were datelined "Brooklyn."

Images include: the original Oakland Tribune item; archival 1850s-'70s maps of Oakland, Brooklyn and Alameda; and two "Brooklyn proclamations" of 1872. Bonus: The story of The Tom Collins Hoax of 1874. 

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Comment
categories / Original sources, Places, Proclamations, Research
tags / Oakland, Brooklyn, Oakland Tribune, maps, Charles Purcell, Pacific Appeal, Tom Collins Hoax of 1874, Becht's, Clinton, San Antonio, Peter Anderson

Mr. Hutchinson's Mementos

April 26, 2015  /  John Lumea

It long has been known that, upon Emperor Norton's death in January 1880, many of his personal effects — including his regimentals, a hat, his sword and his treasured Serpent Scepter, an elaborate walking stick given him by his subjects in Oregon — went to the Society of California Pioneers (only to be lost 26 years later in the earthquake and fire). 

Many, but not all. This week, we discovered archival traces of an early 1880 donation to the Odd Fellows' Library Association of San Francisco. The donation — by David Hutchinson, Emperor Norton's longtime landlord at the Eureka Lodgings — included the stamp the Emperor used to place his seal on his proclamations. It might also have included the Emperor's final proclamation: written and sealed, but not yet delivered and published.  

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categories / Histories, Original sources, Proclamations, Tributes, Commentary, Research
tags / David Hutchinson, Odd Fellows, Peter V. Sellars, Eureka Lodgings, William Drury, Peter Anderson, Pacific Appeal

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