Noble Blood - The First and Last Emperor of America

Episode Date: March 30, 2021

At the end of the 19th century, a man in San Francisco declared himself the Emperor of the United States. Was he mad? Possibly. But he also became a beloved fixture of a city, a unifying symbol, and a monarchical mascot. This is the story of Emperor Norton I. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm Kristen Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? In 1998, my life was forever changed when I took on the role of Charlotte York on a new show called Sex and the City. Now I get to sit down with some of my favorite people and relive all of the incredible moments this show brought us on and off the screen. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. What makes someone a royal? This isn't a loaded or a trick question I'm actually asking, trying to come up with a common sense non-dictionary definition. Maybe it's easier to start by asking how somebody becomes a royal.

Well, blood, right? Certainly that's the first and easiest way to get into the aristocracy. You are literally grandfathered in. If your ancestors are nobles in a certain country, barring a revolution, you'll also be a noble. Although even after a revolution, there were plenty of Russian aristocrat who fled the country and settled in various European manners and hotel rooms and still called themselves dukes and duchesses, what have you, without a country. So, blood. There it is. But you can also be granted a title by a royal for an act of service or greatness. Or you can marry a royal. Those are two ways for a

commoner to insert his or herself into an already existing system of nobility. You probably won't be the main monarch, but you'll still get a title. And then there's the coup strategy. If you can overthrow a king, then you become the king, so long as the military and certain foreign powers will accept you. So what is the actual common denominator then that unites the cousins, the spouses, the usurpers? What makes them all real royals? That Venn diagram becomes even harder to reckon with when you add in a country like Belgium, which imported in a semi-random Bavarian prince to be their king in 1831, because they figured that any self-respecting, independent European country needed a king. It's not necessarily money that makes a king. There are plenty of royals who are history-rich and

cash-poor, and it's certainly not actual power. Just ask any of the present-day royals whose days consist more of charity events and ceremonial displays than declarations of war. I suppose at its most basic core. If you strip away the factor of historical precedent and focus only on any given moment actually in the present, a monarch is a figure supported by the people or government, financially or otherwise, who can offer opinions or proclamations, who attend the needs of the people to the best of their ability, who serve as a uniting symbol. Someone that the government and the people have decided is a monarch. With that in mind, and only semi-ironically in honor of April Fool's Day,

I ask you to consider the curious case of Emperor Norton I first, the man who, in 1859, declared himself to be the emperor of the United States. Most contemporary accounts saw him as an eccentric, if they were being polite, insane if they weren't. But today, now that we've moved past fiefdoms and protectorates, maybe the entire notion of royalty of someone being born more worthy of power than somebody else is a little bit insane. And there's certainly nothing more American than a man who decided what he wanted to be

and then lived it. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. The man who would eventually style himself as Emperor Norton I was born in Deptford, Kent, present day a part of London, on November 4, 1818, to English-Jewish parents. There's actually some historical disagreement as to the actual year that Norton was born. Even his obituary when he died gave his age as, quote, about 65. But from what I've read, 1818 seems to be the year with the most died. documented supporting evidence. And that evidence includes the record of Norton being two years old when his parents moved from England to South Africa in 1820. After the Napoleonic Wars, England was

facing an unemployment crisis, and the government responded by encouraging their citizens to move to England's African colony. The promise was wealth and opportunity. Those who traveled there eventually came to be known as the 1820 settlers, and though the eastern border of the colony never became the densely populated metropolitan area that the British governor in South Africa no doubt envisioned, it seems that the land provided at least enough stable income

for Norton's parents to go on to have six more children. Norton's mother died in 1846 and his father died just two years later, leaving Norton as an orphan in his early 30s without an anchor. He had no real connection to South Africa, and though we don't have the specific date to confirm when it happened, most of his siblings didn't make it past infancy. He was his father's sole surviving son,

which meant that he inherited whatever property was left over after they passed. Norton was an ambitious man. Like his parents, he was willing to cross oceans to change, opportunity. He took his inheritance, stopped briefly in South America, and then made his way towards that mythical land of gold, the American West. There was a gold rush happening in California in 1849, and Joshua Norton was going to San Francisco. In almost no time at all, Norton became a semi-prominent businessman. Now, this part of Norton's life, when he first arrived in America is another major point of contention amongst those who study and

write about Norton's life. Right after Norton's death, an obituary asserted that Norton had arrived in San Francisco with $40,000, an inheritance from his father. That number has been almost endlessly duplicated in other sources you find, sometimes by more sensationalist accounts, which also go on to declare that Norton quickly parlayed that $40,000 using his business acumen into $250,000. But there's not a ton of evidence for those claims, although they do paint a compelling picture of a man catapulting himself from obscurity to wealth in less than a year in the land of opportunity. More detailed biographies imply that Norton's father was actually

in debt in South Africa. Still, it's possible that after liquidating, his father's business and paying off debts, Norton still had a decent inheritance. And it's more than possible that he turned that inheritance into a hefty profit once he reached California. Although, to me, the $250,000 amount seems a little nebulous. It's probably more accurate to say that by 1852, Norton was a member of the San Francisco well-to-do by association. Perhaps not as well, wealthy as most of the other social elite, but well-liked and certainly well-respected. But that was a status that wouldn't last long. In December of 1852, China banned the export of their rice in response to a famine so that its own citizens could afford to eat.

As you might imagine, that ban of Chinese exports caused the price of rice to skyrocket around the rest of the world. The staple, which usually cost four cents a pound in San Francisco, was going for as high as 36 cents a pound. That's when a business acquaintance came into Norton's office. The man pulled a handful of rice from his pocket, excellent quality. Where did you get that? Norton asked. There are 200,000 pounds of it on board the ship, The Glyde, sitting in the harbor right now. the acquaintance said. The rice came from Peru.

It's the only rice San Francisco is going to get for a while and definitely the only rice of this quality. I'll take the entire shipment, Norton said. He bought all 200,000 pounds of Peruvian rice

for 12 cents a pound. He would control the entire market, and if all went according to plan, he would make a massive profit. It's probably not a surprise if I say things didn't go according to plan. Norton was all set to make a tidy profit until several more shipments of Peruvian rice arrived in port over the next few days. By the very next week, there was so much rice from Peru in San Francisco that the price was lowered to two cents a pound. And to make matters worse,

the 200,000 pounds of rice from the glide that Norton had purchased was small, hard, terrible quality. Nothing like the beautiful handful of rice that had glimmered like pearls in his acquaintances' hand, the rice that had tempted him into what was promised to be a surefire investment. Norton was ruined. He claimed that he was misled by the business associate and tried to void his contract and began a lengthy legal battle. Norton won in lower courts, but eventually the California Supreme Court ruled against him. If the payment for the 200,000 pounds of low-quality, overpriced rice hadn't already been enough to ruin him,

the legal fees took what was left. Norton's holdings were foreclosed on. Norton declared bankruptcy, fed up and exasperated by the American judicial system. In 1858, he was living as a pauper in a cheap San Francisco boarding house, paying by the week, alongside degenerates and the impoverished. There's no record of what Norton did while he was licking his wounds, hiding from the society folks who had up until so recently been his friends. He was a proud man, and he remained in seclusion until he was ready to be reborn.

On September 17, 1859, a proclamation was printed in the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin. It read, At the peremptory request of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope, and now for the past nine years and ten months of San Francisco, California, declare and proclaim myself, emperor of these U.S., and, in virtue, the authority thereby in me vested, do hereby order and direct the representatives of different states of the Union to assemble in the music hall of this city on the first day of February next,

then and there to make such alterations in the existing laws of the Union, as may ameliorate the evils under which the country is laboring, and thereby caused confidence to exist both at home and abroad in our stability and integrity. That meeting of all the states at the musical hall, it never happened. But Norton wasn't entirely wrong about the troubling direction that the American political system was heading into. We were a year away from Abraham Lincoln being elected president, and it would be a year after that that the Civil War would begin. Norton saw the fractures in this country, the deep roots of racism and division amongst its people.

He figured an emperor would be just the thing to fix us. He had delivered his typewritten proclamation to newspaper offices around the city in person. He was a large man, more stocky than tall. Behind his thick mustache and full beard, he had small, sharp eyes and a complexion that verged on Ruddy. His hair was dark and curly, but almost always hidden beneath a beaver hat, although eventually he would take to wearing the sunken flat soft cap of a Union soldier, along with the rest of a blue Union uniform. Norton purchased these uniforms from pawn shops, usually left behind by Union deserters.

Over time, Norton's uniform gradually became more elaborate. He was gifted gold-plated. epaulets that he affixed to his clothing whenever he wanted to look particularly regal. And his hat would come to house a peacock feather and a rosette. Sometimes Norton walked around the San Francisco streets with a cane. His politics were progressive. His first proclamation, after announcing himself, of course, was to dismiss the governor of Virginia for hanging the abolitionist John Brown.

Norton would go on to demand that African Americans be permitted to attend public schools and to ride public street cars, and that Chinese people be permitted to testify in court. Quote, The eyes of the emperor will be upon anyone who shall counsel any outrage or wrong on the Chinese, Emperor Norton wrote. And with respect to Native Americans, Norton wrote that any parties connected with frauds against the, quote, Indian tribes, were to be punished before a council of as many Native American chiefs as could be assembled. Though his words didn't make much of a political impact, in San Francisco at least, it didn't take long for Emperor Norton to gain massive attention as a popular figure,

a figure who captured the public imagination and became something of a citywide mascot. Just two years after Norton appeared on the scene, a new theater in San Francisco opened with a comic opera written and staged about him called Norton I, or Emperor Ferday. Citizens delighted at seeing him in public, especially if he happened to be accompanied by two of San Francisco's other most famous citizens, beloved street dogs, Bummer and Lazarus. Industrialist Leland Stanford, who was the president of the Central Public Railroad, clocked Norton's popularity and saw an opportunity to gain some good PR to help dispel his robber baron reputation. Stanford gave Norton a free pass for all of his train routes in California.

Norton lived off of goodwill, donations, and good deals throughout the city. Most pubs offered a free lunch with the purchase of a drink, but Norton typically ate at the bank exchange where you could get a free lunch of soup, salmon, roast beef, potatoes, bread and cheese, all with the purchase of a brandy smash for just 25 cents. His clothes were shabby, visibly secondhand, and if friends from his former life tried to help him, Norton would be willing to take 50-cent pieces,

but only because he referred to them as taxes and recorded them dutifully in a notebook that he always carried with him. He's actually secretly incredibly wealthy, went the gossip on the streets. Didn't you hear? He's a millionaire. He only accepts charity and lives the way he does because he's very cheap. It's all a ruse.

Yes, I've heard that, came to typical response. Did you know he's actually the secret son of Louis Napoleon? When Napoleon invaded Mexico, Norton gave himself an additional title, Protector of Mexico. Despite the fact that there's no evidence that Norton ever set foot in Mexico, at any point during his life.

One brief side note, if you happen to have listened to my Noble Blood episode about Maximilian and Carlotta of Mexico, you'll know that Norton didn't do such a great job as protector. All the while, Norton continued to issue decrees

that were published by newspapers, a proclamation that the Democratic and Republican parties were to be abolished, a demand that Sacramento clean up the mud on its streets, and installed gaslight on the straight leading to the Capitol building, and a very forward-thinking idea that a bridge or tunnel should be built to connect San Francisco to Oakland.

When Norton's second-hand uniform began to fall apart, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors bought him a new one. In response, Norton sent a formal thank-you letter and issued every member of the board, quote, a patent of nobility in perpetuity. Newspapers, particularly the Daily Alta, California, recognized what a boon Emperor Norton was to circulation numbers. He was a central comic figure to the tapestry of the city.

People loved him. And so, in short time, certain newspapers began using Norton's name and notoriety to make editorial jokes about political situations, writing phony proclamations supposedly by him. It's under these circumstances that one of the most widely shared proclamations, supposedly by Norton, was issued in 1872. Quote, Whoever after due and proper warning shall be heard to utter the abominable word,

Frisco, which has no linguistic or other warrant, shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and shall pay into the imperial treasury as penalty the sum of $25. Charming, and a good reminder never to call San Francisco Frisco, but probably not actually written by Emperor Norton. Because Emperor Norton was almost from the outset a figure larger than life, a living myth, it can be difficult to parse out the truth in his history, as opposed to stories that were merely urban legends that cast a colorful folk hero in the leading role.

There's also the question as to whether, well, Emperor Norton was mentally unwelled. He seemed to genuinely believe that he was the emperor of the United States. The 1870 census lists his occupation sensibly as emperor, but also added the note that he was. insane. The famous writer Mark Twain was living in San Francisco for several years during Emperor Norton's reign. And in Twain's column for the Daily Morning Call, he wrote of Norton, quote, Oh dear, it was always a painful thing for me to see the emperor begging, for although nobody else believed he was an emperor, he believed it. In 1867, a man named Armand Barbier, who was working as part of a civilian security policing force, arrested Norton and tried to have him involuntarily committed

to a psychiatric facility. The outrage was loud and instant. The Daily Alta wrote an article with the headline, Arrest of the Emperor, which read, quote, special officer Barbier yesterday arrested the Emperor Norton I and took him to the Calaboose to be examined by the Commissioner of Lunacy. Norton was in his day a respectable merchant, and since he has worn the Imperial Purple, he has shed no blood, robbed nobody, and despoiled the country of no one, which is more than can be said for any of his fellows in that line. Within a day, the San Francisco Chief of Police himself personally granted Norton's release and issued a formal apology, which Norton graciously accepted.

Norton also graciously granted an imperial pardon to Barbier, who, Norton understood, was only trying to do his job. The Daily Altas article about his release read, Honorably discharged, his Imperial Majesty, Norton I, who was arrested as a lunatic on Monday night, as stated in the Alta, was promptly discharged from custody as soon as the facts of the arrest were made known to the proper authorities. Yesterday, he called the property clerk's desk, received back the key of the palace, and the imperial funds, amounting to $4.75 of lawful money of the United States.

From that day on, whenever police saw Emperor Norton walking through the streets of San Francisco in his uniform and hat, they saluted. Norton was a fixture of the city, riding trains, trolleys and ferries, attending sessions. of the state legislature, university lectures, and occasionally traveling across California to inspect military troops. Norton also issued his own currency, from 50 cents to $10, which was happily accepted by the restaurants that he frequently patronized. Norton was so famous and beloved in the city that businesses would gleefully declare themselves as the emperor's favorite to gain publicity.

Emperor Norton reigned for over 20 years, traveling the city, writing his proclamations on typewriters at the city library, greeting any small dogs were children who came his way with a smile and declaring any child who met him to be king or queen for a day. But then on January 8, 1880, Norton was on his way to a lecture at the California Academy of Sciences when he collapsed on the corner of what is now California Street and Grand Avenue. A policeman happened to be nearby, and he rushed to get Norton a carriage to the hospital, but it was too late. Norton had a stroke, and he died almost instantly.

As it turns out, all of the rumors of the emperor having secret wealth were unfounded. When the authorities went through his belongings, they found only $6 in small chain. and no personal belongings of value, although there was one fake letter from Alexander II of Russia, congratulating Norton on his impending marriage to Queen Victoria. Over the years, Norton had sent numerous letters to the Queen of England, proposing that they unite their empires through matrimony, although rudely Victoria never responded. Norton was going to be buried in a simple redwood box, until the people of San Francisco decided that he deserved a proper burial.

The Pacific Club issued a subscription list to sponsors who would donate. That list supposedly is still available to see in their club room. Norton was buried in a rosewood casket, and his funeral procession was over two miles long, with as many as 10,000 people lining the streets to pay their final respects. Norton lived on in literature. Mark Twain's most famous novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, includes two con artists who call themselves the Duke and the King,

the latter pretending to be the descendant of the dead Delphonse, Louis XIV, of France. Although those characters are antagonists, wily, not merely eccentric, but actually nefarious, they were nevertheless inspired by the emperor. But I find a more fitting literary description of Emperor Norton in Neil Gaiman's graphic novel series The Sandman. In the story, three September's and a January. If you haven't read Sandman yet, please put it on your list immediately.

In the series, despair, dream, delirium, desire, and death are all semi-living characters, immortal siblings called The Endless. In the comic, after Norton fails as a business, man, he is a victim of despair until dream arrives and gives him the dream of him being an emperor. It's that dream that keeps him from going mad. He ought to be mine, but he isn't. Is he? Delirium asks. He's so sane, except about being the emperor, of course.

His madness keeps him sane. At the end of the issue, when death comes for Emperor Norton, the two of them, walk away side by side. I've met a lot of kings and emperors and heads of state in my time, Joshua, death says to him. I've met them all. And you know something? I think I like to you best. That's the story of Emperor Norton, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about the emperor's legacy in San Francisco. And just a quick reminder, if you want to support the show. We have a Patreon. Patreon.com slash noble blood tales where you can get access to scripts, episode bibliographies, and other behind the scenes information. If you are a founder or a

freelancer or the friend who always says, hey, you know what, what if I started that? This is for you. I'm telling you, I had nothing to my name. I didn't know a single person in New York. And somehow I'm dressed by Oscar DeLorenda walking down that red carpet. This month, we sit down with entrepreneurs and creators who actually did it, who turned the scary leave into a business, a paycheck, and a life they are proud of. Direct center of our happiness or our regrets is whether or not we're taking action on the things that matter to us. They're not selfish.

They're so important. They actually lead to our greatest contributions because when we're living fulfilled, we actually show up better everywhere. We lead better. We're better friends. We're better relationships and collaborators and all those things because we have passion about the things we're doing. If you're trying to build something of your own this year, join us in these conversations that will make you braver and smarter with your money.

Listen to Dos Amigos as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network available on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Kristen Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? In 1998, my life was forever changed when I took on the role of Charlotte York on a new show called Sex and the City. Now I get to sit down with some of my favorite people and relive all of the incredible moments this show brought us on and off the screen. Like when Sarah Jessica Parker shared that she forgot we filmed the pilot episode.

You forgot about it? I completely forgot about it. And when the show was picked up, I panicked. And Cynthia Nixon reveals if she's a Miranda. We both feel confident about our brains. But that's kind of where it ends. Plus, sex in the city super fan. And Megan V. Stelion doesn't hold back on her opinions of the show.

Carrie will literally go sit New York on fire and then come back and type about it at the end of the day. Like half of it wasn't her fault. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Eventually, after Norton's death, there was a bridge built between San Francisco and Oakland. The Bay Bridge built in 1936, 56 years after. Norton's death. Since then, there have been multiple campaigns to rename the bridge in his honor. Another little bit of interesting Norton ephemera comes from Jose Saria, who became the first openly gay person to ever run for public office in the United States when he ran for the San Francisco

Board of Supervisors in 1961. Saria was also a drag performer who sometimes stopped child himself as Her Royal Majesty, Empress of San Francisco, Jose I. The Widow Norton. Soraya actually purchased the grave plot next to Joshua Norton. And that's where he was buried, next to his imaginary husband, the imaginary emperor. Noble Blood is a production of I-Heart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood

Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noblebloodtales.com. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Kristen Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? In 1998, my life was forever changed when I took on the role of Charlotte York on a new show called Sex and the City. Now I can to sit down with some of my favorite people and relive all of the incredible moments this show brought us on and off the screen. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.