WALL STREET JOURNAL COVERS EMPEROR NORTON I

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V18 2015 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 18, Number 33, August 16, 2015, Article 28

I was delighted to sit down to breakfast on August 12, 2015 and see a Wall Street Journal article about our old friend emperor Norton of San Francisco. The lovable 19th century eccentric issued "bonds" that are now rare and highly collectible and featured in numismatic auctions. -Editor

Wearing a top hat festooned with multicolored feathers, Joseph Amster stopped in front of a Ghirardelli Chocolate Co. store on bustling Market Street and began shouting at the shop’s bemused clientele through its large glass windows.

“Look at them! Ignoring me! Mocking me! They have not heard the last of me!” Mr. Amster exclaimed, the feathers quivering with his wild gesticulations. “I will issue a special proclamation demanding they bring back my sundae!”

Patrons likely had no idea what he was talking about. But Mr. Amster was playing the role of this city’s most celebrated 19th-century eccentric: Norton I, the self-styled “Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.”

Mr. Norton’s was once a household name here. Numerous things were named after him, including Ghirardelli’s Emperor Norton Sundae. But the sundae, like Mr. Norton in general, has since faded from view.

Now some San Franciscans are pushing to return the emperor to prominence. Mr. Amster, 59 years old, who conducts tours dressed as Emperor Norton, is among those trying to bring him back, to rekindle the city’s celebration of society’s oddballs and outcasts.

Another admirer launched an effort to place the emperor’s sculpture in the city’s historic Portsmouth Square. Meanwhile, official-looking “Imperial Landmark” plaques dedicated to Mr. Norton have begun clandestinely appearing on various city corners.

It is a uniquely San Francisco movement, boosted partly out of fears that the influx of hipsters and wealthy Silicon Valley techies, spawning artisanal pop-ups and burgeoning multimillion-dollar condos, is erasing some of the city’s odd soul.

“The old-timers are attempting to reclaim something of San Francisco that appears to be going away,” said Jason Macario, of the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society.

Though his gravesite reads “1819,” debate over Mr. Norton’s life begins at birth, with some historians and fans saying he was most likely born in 1818.

Born in England and raised in South Africa, Joshua Abraham Norton was the archetypal San Franciscan, aficionados say, a hero who hailed from someplace else, succeeded in building a fortune here and then lost it in spectacular fashion. Mr. Norton’s downfall came from betting unsuccessfully that he could corner the market in rice.

A favorite interview for reporters of the era, Emperor Norton was famous for his assertions of supreme authority over the country, calls to dissolve Congress and pledges to impose fines on anyone heard calling the city “Frisco.”

Mr. Norton vanished after declaring bankruptcy in 1856. Then on Sept. 17, 1859, he walked into the offices of a local newspaper and brandished a letter proclaiming himself Emperor of the U.S. The editor printed it for fun, and San Franciscans kind of just ran with it.

For about 21 years, Mr. Norton lived as emperor, with some scholars saying his persona likely inspired the Mark Twain character of the king in “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

Mr. Norton was known for wearing an unusual assortment of uniforms, according to local historian Peter Moylan. For special occasions, he would dress in a stained Union officer’s coat with gold epaulets, and a tall beaver hat with an ostrich plume, a cavalry sword at his hip.

By the time he dropped dead on a street corner in 1880, his fame was so renowned he drew more than 10,000 mourners to his burial ceremony.

Some of the emperor’s various proclamations proved prescient. He defended the rights of minorities. He ordered the formation of a league of nations to settle disputes. And yes, he mandated building a bridge between San Francisco and Oakland.

“He came here to reinvent himself and the city embraced him in a way no other place in the world would have,” said Mr. Amster, who conducts his time machine tours in emperor garb for $20 a person. “It’s a story that happens here over and over again.”