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Only in San Francisco #10,652

Sep 17, 2009
By .
History

150 years ago today, the sort of person that our current mayor Gavin Newsom would try to imprison (ie homeless) put a small notice in the San Francisco Bulletin proclaiming himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States acting on "the peremptory request of a large majority of the citizens." The editor printed it as a joke, but in San Francisco it stuck.

Dressed in a uniform given to him by the presiding General of the Presidio, he owned the City along with his two stray mutts, Bummer and Lazarus. Restaurants competed to have him dine there (gratis, of course. One doesn't charge an Emperor), they saved seats at the theatre for him and he even kept correspondence with other heads of State. Heck, Mark Twain wrote the obituary for Bummer!

Norton (real name Joshua Norton) had come to the City during the Gold Rush. He made a fortune in real estate and then lost it. He lived in a boarding house in a seedy neighborhood for 50 cents a night. But San Franciscans have always loved a character, and they embraced Norton as their true ruler. Today there are still restaurants, stores and historical sites all over the City recognizing him. When he died in 1880, his funeral procession was two miles long!

A few years ago, there was a movement to name the Bay Bridge after Emperor Norton, since he had issued numerous proclamations calling for a bridge to be built between San Francisco and Oakland. Of course, he also wrote procalamtions calling for the forced dissolution of Congress, saying it was a "remedy for the evil complained of." He also banned the use of the "abominable word" "Frisco" (and here, here!) under penalty of a $25 fine and produced his own currency.

So, on this the anniversary of our ruler, I suggest we all have a drink in the Emperor's honor. He was truly a San Francisco original. Robert Louis Stevension said it well: "In what other city, would a harmless madman who supposed himself emperor … been so fostered and encouraged?" Hail Norton I!

Last 5 posts by Ezra

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3 Comments

  1. Patrick  •  Sep 17, 2009 @2:50 pm

    Funny.

    If you read your own forum, you'd know that on October 12, the 150th anniversary of Emperor Norton's decree abolishing the Congress of the United States of America, we're hosting Blawgreview, the Carnival of Law Bloggers. Many blawgreviews follow a theme, and ours will be no exception.

    Its theme will be the life and works of Joshua Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. We chose that date because we consider Emperor Norton's decree to be one of the greatest political statements, in favor of personal liberty and against government tyranny and corruption, in the western canon. Even if it's a bad blawgreview, it will be a great post about Emperor Norton, one of that rarest of creatures, an actual benevolent despot. We aim to make it the best on the web.

    It's weird the coincidences life throws our way, isn't it? Almost spooky.

  2. mojo  •  Sep 19, 2009 @12:35 pm

    I believe SF State was at one point going to be named "Emperor Norton University"…

  3. Rich Rostrom  •  Sep 19, 2009 @11:16 pm

    Alas, the legend of Emperor Norton has been considerably exaggerated over the years. Many writers have freely added to it, putting in anything that made a good story.

    He didn't get free meals or theater tickets all the time, only when some manager thought it would be good publicity.

    Bummer and Lazarus were not his dogs, and he rather resented being associated with the two stray mutts.

    He didn't issue his own currency. For the first several years of his reign, he survived by touching wealthy friends from the Gold Rush days for small "loans"; when all those men had died off, moved away, or gone broke, he printed up "Imperial bonds" for sale to tourists.

    Incidentally, Joshua Norton was a South African Jew. Really – his parents moved to Cape Colony from England in 1820, when he was about two. His father helped found Tikvath Israel, the first Jewish congregation in South Africa. He lived there till news of the Gold Rush hit, then sailed for California.

    See Norton I: Emperor of the United States by San Francisco newspaperman William Drury.