RECENT RESEARCH — A public dedication ceremony for the reburial of Emperor Norton in Colma, Calif., was held on 30 June 1934. Those who are familiar with this part of the Emperor's story most closely associate 30 June 1934 with his reburial, as this is the date when the reburial was solemnized — when dignitaries offered eulogies and speeches; musicians from the Municipal Band and Olympic Club of San Francisco played and sang; and a U.S. Army honor guard fired a 3-gun salute before a gathering of some 200 people. But — as we show here — the burial itself took place nearly 3 months earlier.

The Emperor Norton Trust

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

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

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Chief Crowley Releases a Sword

July 12, 2019 / John Lumea

On 16 February 1880 — a little more than a month after Emperor Norton’s death on 8 January — the San Francisco Board of Supervisors conveyed the Emperor’s main personal effects to the Society of California Pioneers.

San Francisco Police Chief Patrick Crowley, who famously had released the Emperor from jail in January 1867 — the morning after an overzealous member of the police auxiliary had falsely arrested the Emperor on bogus charges of vagrancy and lunacy — had one more item to add to the Pioneers’ new collection of Imperial artifacts.

The Police Department had been holding on to it for 15 years.

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categories / Original sources, Research
tags / sword, saber, sabre, Patrick Crowley, police, Society of California Pioneers, San Francisco Examiner, coroner, Board of Supervisors