In three late-in-life studio portrait photographs — taken c.1878 by two different studios — Emperor Norton can be seen wearing a mysterious ring.
Were the rings shown in these photographs one and the same? Or were they different?
Was one, or both, a gift? If so: Did one, or both, of the rings feature an Emperor Norton insignia or inscription of some kind?
Was one a Masonic ring — a symbol the Emperor’s membership in Occidental Lodge No. 22 of Free and Accepted Masons?
Was the Emperor buried with one of these rings?
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In October 1854, the California Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling against Joshua Norton & Co. in Ruiz v. Norton — the famous “rice case.”
Details of the fallout from this ruling suggest that Joshua already was overextended and carrying heavy debt before the rice fiasco; that he was overinvested — and highly leveraged — in real estate; and that, in general, his wealth was much more fragile and precarious than often is supposed.
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It long has been known that the U.S. Census of 1870 recorded Emperor Norton as “Insane.”
Much less often noted is that this Census also marked the Emperor as having his voting rights “denied or abridged.”
But, exactly how were these determinations made? Census takers were known as Assistant Marshals. And, clues (presented here) from the U.S. Census Office’s Instructions to Assistant Marshals for 1870 strongly suggest that Emperor Norton could have been deemed “Insane” and had his voting rights stripped based on little more than a private conversation between the census taker and the Emperor’s landlord at the Eureka Lodgings.
Included here are images from the Instructions as well as a rarely seen hi-res view of the full Census page showing Emperor Norton’s listing alongside the listing of every other person residing at the Eureka when the census taker paid his call to the Eureka on 1 August 1870.
What emerges from the listings is a portrait of an establishment that — based on the range of occupations of the tenants — should not be characterized by words, like “flophouse,” that later accounts have used to downgrade the Emperor’s residence.
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The late Phil Frank is known and even beloved in Norton circles for a particular series of his Farley comics with which — between September and December 2004 — Frank sought to educate the San Francisco Chronicle’s readership about Emperor Norton while also taking up the cause of naming the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge after the Emp.
The series is credited with having built much of the momentum for the introduction and passage of a San Francisco Board of Supervisors resolution in December 2004 calling for the new Eastern section of the Bay Bridge to be named the Emperor Norton Bridge.
What appears to have escaped the notice of most Nortonians, even those who consider themselves “tuned in” on bridge matters, is that (a) Frank had weighed in on the “Emperor Norton Bridge” imperative 18 years earlier, with a shorter series of Farley comics published in October 1986 — and that (b) this earlier series was prompted by an “Emperor Norton Bridge” petition drive launched and advanced in 1986 by William Drury, whose new biography on the Emperor was being published, promoted and reviewed at the same time.
This “memory rescue” of a key moment in “Emperor Norton Bridge” advocacy includes archival audio of a 2004 NPR interview with Phil Frank, in which Frank references the earlier petition, as well as the complete — and rarely seen — series of Frank’s 1986 Farley comics that were inspired by the petition.
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When the fraternity of E Clampus Vitus sought in 1939 to place a plaque honoring Emperor Norton at the Transbay Terminal, in San Francisco, the California Toll Bridge Authority — the developer and de facto owner of the Terminal — said No.
Finally, in 1955, the plaque was installed at the Cliff House. But, a lingering question has been: What did the Clampers do to find a home for the plaque in the 16 years between 1939 and 1955?
Certainly, World War II made it difficult to push the project forward. But, even allowing for that, we’ve uncovered some news accounts suggesting that there was more behind-the-scenes activity than previously thought.
It appears that the Clampers continued to make appeals to the Bridge Authority for at least 18 months in 1939 and 1940.
And, the effort that resulted in getting the plaque at the Cliff House in 1955 started at least 5 years earlier, in 1950 — with several brick walls on the path to the first proper dedication.
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Allen Lane wrote the first of only two book-length biographies of Emperor Norton that have been published.
The book hit the shops in February 1939.
Last week, I acquired a very special presentation copy of Lane’s biography. In fact, it’s the copy that Lane gifted to his parents on their anniversary, when the book was published.
Information in the inscription prompted me to do some digging into Lane’s story — something that long has been something of a mystery in Norton circles. What I discovered will be new, I think, to those who know Lane only as a Norton biographer.
Read on to learn more about Lane — and to get the second part of the twofer.
Includes an image of Lane’s inscription and a rare photograph of Lane that he included with the book.
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Popular accounts of Emperor Norton — including the respected 1986 biography by William Drury — have Joshua Norton as a “charter member” of Occidental Lodge No. 22 of Free and Accepted Masons.
This is inaccurate. It also is not the point.
For what bears real consideration is that Joshua sought and was granted membership in the Occidental Lodge between May 1854 and May 1855, the very moment when — at every professional, legal, financial and personal level — he was approaching the depths of his instability, vulnerability and failure.
Also documented here: Two illustrious San Franciscans who were members of the Occidental Lodge at the same time that Joshua Norton was.
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If you know the Emperor Norton story well enough to know that…
When the Emperor died in January 1880, he was buried in the Masonic Cemetery, in San Francisco.
As part of the Great San Francisco Cemetery Eviction of the early twentieth century, the Emperor’s remains were moved to new grave, at Woodlawn cemetery, in Colma, Calif.
The Emperor’s reburial ceremony took place at Woodlawn on 30 June 1934.
…you may have assumed that the Emperor “remained” at the Masonic Cemetery more or less until the time of the reburial ceremony.
In fact, Emperor Norton was disinterred 20 months earlier.
So, where were Emperor Norton's remains located from the time they were disinterred in San Francisco in October 1932 until the time they were reburied in Colma in June 1934?
Here are a few clues.
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In the United States, the prevailing narrative about Joshua Norton, for 80 years and more, has been that
He sailed directly from Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro, arriving in Rio early to mid 1849, and from Rio to San Francisco.
He may have spent a few months in South America between his arrivals in Rio and San Francisco.
His introduction to the United States was his arrival in San Francisco in late 1849.
But a persuasive body of evidence — including a passenger list, a disembarkation ticket and two newspaper arrivals notices — points to a different reality: Joshua Norton initially sailed from Liverpool to Boston, arriving in Boston in March 1846.
This means that Joshua probably left Cape Town no later than November 1845 — and that the reasons for his departure had nothing to do with family deaths or the Gold Rush.
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Did you know that, when Joshua Norton was living in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in the early 1840s, he did a stint as an auctioneer? We didn’t!
Every new dot makes the picture a little sharper.
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Two of the most basic modern assumptions about the locations and business enterprises of Joshua Norton in 1852 San Francisco appear not to bear scrutiny.
The assumptions — that Joshua Norton held forth from facilities that he “built” on 3 of the 4 corners of Sansome and Jackson Streets, and that one of these facilities was a rice mill — were espoused and may, in part, have been created by Norton’s 1986 biographer, William Drury.
But, Drury’s claims were undocumented. A deep-dive into the documentary record points to a different picture.
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In the mid to late 1870s, the Bradley & Rulofson studio created one of the seven photo-portraits of Emperor Norton the studio is known to have taken of the Emperor during his reign. The seated Emperor is holding his favorite walking stick, and his Chinese umbrella is propped against the chair.
The best-known version of this photograph appeared in a book published in 1964. The photo appears very dark — which adds to the mood but also obscures many details.
Here, we present a rarely seen brighter, more balanced — and more revealing — version of the photo that appeared in 1961.
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The story goes that, when Pedro II, the Emperor of Brazil, visited San Francisco in April 1876, he and Norton I had a confab.
But, is this true?
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In recent years, there have been several claims on social media and elsewhere that Emperor Norton’s funeral in 1880 took place on the northeast corner of Bagley Place and O'Farrell Street, in San Francisco — on (or nearest to) the site of a building, still standing, that opened in 1910 as a bank; that in the last decade has housed an Emporio Armani store; and that today is home to the Museum of Ice Cream.
The temptation to connect this site to the Emperor’s funeral is understandable. The heavy, domed, stone-clad, temple-like edifice that now occupies the site has more than a touch of the funereal. Until very recently, the building had on the O’Farrell Street side medieval-looking, vault-like wooden doors that only added to the effect.
But, most likely, Emperor Norton’s funeral was across the street.
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The informational web pages on Emperor Norton that were created and posted during the earliest days of the Internet are some of the most frequently shared resources on the Emperor. They also are some of the least historically reliable.
Here’s our shortlist of Norton pages that those who care about the Emperor’s legacy should “handle with care.”
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In the 17 years since the San Francisco Chronicle noted in 2004 that the Emperor Norton Sundae no longer was on the menu at the Ghirardelli ice cream shop in San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square, the conventional wisdom has held that 2004 was when the “Emperor Norton” was removed.
But, I always have pointed out that 2004 is when the absence was noticed and reported as news — the removal itself could have happened earlier.
Turns out I was right. But, the cherry on top may be that the Emperor Norton Sundae has been hiding in plain sight at Ghirardelli — under a different name — for 20-plus years.
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From late 1862 / early 1863 until his death in January 1880, Emperor Norton lived at the Eureka Lodgings — a kind of 19th-century SRO located at 624 Commercial Street, on the north side of Commercial between Montgomery and Kearny Streets, in San Francisco.
There is a handful of 1860s–1880s photographs, taken from across Montgomery or Kearny, that show distant views of the 600 block of Commercial Street.
What we’d never seen, though, is a photo of the 600 block of Commercial taken during the Emperor’s lifetime — taken from within the block — and showing the real, intimate flavor of the section of the street where Emperor Norton lived.
Our discovery, hidden in plain sight, is a c.1876 photograph apparently taken by Eadweard Muybridge.
A bonus: The photo appears to reveal a glimpse of the Eureka Lodgings itself.
If we’re right about this, we may have produced the first-ever visual ID of photographic evidence of the Emperor’s residence.
Kind of a big deal.
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It appears that the earliest known photograph of Emperor Norton is a little earlier than we thought — and earlier than anyone else has said.
The case for the time frame that we focus on here draws on early artistic depictions of the Emperor and on one of the Emperor’s earliest sartorial choices, which is documented in an easy-to-miss newspaper item from May 1860.
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In the Trivia Time feature that accompanied his 19 September 2020 history column for the San Francisco Chronicle, historian Gary Kamiya stated that Emperor Norton imposed a $25 fine for using the word “Frisco.”
In the Trivia Time that ran with his next column, published on 3 October 2020, Kamiya issued a correction and cited Emperor Norton Trust founder John Lumea as the authority for saying that “no primary documents have been found to support this claim.”
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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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