America’s Last Emperor: Alcalde
By: Darren Mckeeman
Tags: Emperor Norton, San Francisco, Fiction, Historical Fiction, San Francisco History

Chapter Two

Note: Chapter One can be found by clicking here.

San Francisco in 1850 courtesy of OpenSFHistory.org

Saturday, November 24th, 1849

Joshua Norton awoke from the first good night’s sleep he’d had in four months, a little startled that he was not swaying to and fro on a boat.

The large bed that he lay in was probably the best he’d ever slept in. The brass headboard came almost up to the top of the dark wainscotting that clad the walls, and what was not covered by wood was painted a deep crimson. Red velvet curtains closed off the room from the light hitting the windows. The small amount of sunbeams leaking in slowly forced consciousness into his brain.

He flipped the covers back and swung his feet over the side, as he thought about all he had to do today. He thought about the alcalde first. The concierge informed him without asking that this was a Spanish word for “mayor”. The alcalde’s office was up in the old post office in Portsmouth Square. They were still building the city hall across the street from the square.

He went to the washbasin in his room and poured a stream of water into it from the pitcher beside it. His shaving kit unpacked from his trunk was a welcome sight. He’d not had the courage to attempt a shave at sea while lurching from side to side with a straight razor. He also had quite a beard going. His ice blue eyes considered his face in the mirror as it had for some thirty years before. His aquiline nose receded into his forehead the same way his forehead receded into his hairline. After a second of consideration, he bent over the washbasin and used his cupped hands to vigorously splash water on the considered face. Rubbing briskly, he got his entire head wet and reached for the lush towel beside the washbasin to pat himself dry. As he combed his hair and beard out, he made a mental note that he should see a barber before seeing the alcalde rather than attempt to tame his four month old hair growth on his own.

As he considered the suit he’d laid out for himself, he thought about banking. He’d have to open a bank account. That might be the first order of business, as a matter of fact. After the haircut, of course. He stepped out of his nightshirt and went about putting on the severe black suit and shirt combination. A shirt unworn for six months was first, starched just as crisply as when he had laid it in the trunk in Cape Town. The socks and garters were next, followed by pulling over pants and fastening suspenders. Over all of this he layered a grey waistcoat. He preferred a cravat and for his first day in San Francisco he chose his favorite cravat, a deep crimson that actually matched the walls and drapes of his hotel room. Finally, after pulling on his shoes he finished the whole thing off with his favorite cutaway morning jacket. They actually fit a bit loose on him after his sea voyage, and this made him think of the real first order of business on a Saturday morning — breakfast.

###

The dining hall of the Jones Hotel was completely full except for a single seat at a table near the rear. Compared to the ship, the dining hall was spacious despite having over fifty people in it at the moment. The color scheme was much the same as the room he had taken upstairs, except there were really no windows to hang drapes on. At the rear of the room was a swinging door that seemed to belch men with plates coming to the tables.

Norton looked about and noticed an interesting thing about the room — there was not a single woman in sight. As it was a respectable hotel, every man was dressed almost the same as Norton. As he walked, he noticed that the plates all held exactly the same food — scrambled eggs, sourdough toast, some kind of mush and a pile of stewed rhubarb.

Norton moved to the table with a vacant seat and introduced himself.

“Gentleman, my name is Joshua Norton. I arrived last night aboard the Genesee, from Cape Town. As this is the only seat left in the room, would it be acceptable for me to take it?”

The men had not gotten their food yet, and stood up to greet him.

“Peter Donohue”, said the first man, offering his hand.

Norton grasped his hand firmly in his right hand, and then used his left hand to cover them both. While covered, he split the four fingers of his right hand into two parts and moved them on either side of the base of Donohue’s palm. There was no reaction as they shook.

“Joseph Eastland,” said the other man. The process was repeated. This time, the proper secret response was forthcoming and Norton knew he had found his people. He made a mental note to ask where the local Freemasons met.

“Peter Robertson”, said the other man.

As Norton offered his hand, he saw that the man must have barely been twenty. He didn’t bother to offer the Masonic handshake.

“Do sit down, Mr. Norton,” said Mr. Eastland. “Mr. Donohue was just regaling us with the tale of the onions.”

“Onions?” he asked.

“Yup,” said Mr. Donohue. “I was in Peru when I heard about the gold strike. I made my way to Panama and found the S.S. Oregon was just coming back with the mail, going round the Horn, and then coming back with the mail for next month. At the same time, I contracted malaria…”

“Good heavens!” said Norton.

“It’s not contagious,” said Donohue.

“But you made it here,” said Norton.

“Yup,” said Donohue. “When they pulled into port they had a busted boiler. I made a thousand dollars fixing it for them — I build metal boats, I’m a blacksmith…”

“A marine engineer”, said Mr. Eastland.

“Whatever, I make things that float from metal,” said Donohue. “Anyhow, I took that money and I bought some onions.”

“That’s a lot of onions,” said Norton.

“They had a lot,” said Donohue. “I paid the cargo fee, and when we pulled into port I found an agent that sold them for a dollar apiece for me.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Norton for the second time this conversation.

“I’ll say. I paid a hundred dollars a ton for them. Bought seven tons. Made four thousand a ton.” said Donohue.

Norton felt a little better upon hearing this.

“This bodes well for my line of work,” he said. “I’m an agent, good sirs. I buy things and sell them. In South Africa I owned a chandlery, the contents of which are currently waiting to be unloaded here.”

It was time for the other eyes at the table to widen.

“You’re gonna clean up,” said Donohue, as a man came by with coffee in a pot.

“Now all I need to do is find a bank,” said Norton.

“I can help you with that, sir,” said Eastland.

Norton had no doubt he could.

“I’d be interested to know what you all profess as your profession,” said Norton.

“Well, I actually put an ad out and Mr. Eastland here answered it. He’s my new engineer.”

“Engineer?”

“Yup. You see, my brothers are on their way here but I’ve staked out a plot of land near the new streets they’ve laid out south of Market Street. It’s right on the road to the Mission out by the creek. I’m setting up a foundry to do shipwork. It’s badly needed here, and I have enough money to do it now.”

“And what of you, young Mr. Robertson? What brings you to San Francisco?”

Robertson had been quiet this entire time, and seemed a bit intimidated. He perked up as if a teacher had suddenly asked a question of him unexpectedly, and managed to stammer out a reply.

“Well, you see, I just finished my schooling in Boston last May, so my father told me to go make something of myself. He gave me some money, and bought me a one way steamer ticket. I left in June. I’ve only just arrived last week.”

“What are you looking to do here?” asked Norton.

“Oh, I don’t really know right now. Real estate was what I thought at first, but the land here is expensive, I’d only be able to buy one or two properties.”

Everyone else was a little surprised at this, and on Donohue it showed a lot.

“Don’t go out after dark, kid,” said Donohue, shaking his head.

###

The four men walked together, making their way towards Portsmouth Square, the center of town. Mr. Donohue had been here the longest, since June. He was headed to the alcalde’s office on business anyway and offered to show Norton the way. Times being what they were, the alcalde was working on Saturdays these days. Robertson politely asked if he could tag along and nobody objected.

They walked up California to Montgomery, which Donohue said was currently the main street of the growing town. Norton was astonished by the variety of buildings that were erected. Most of them looked as if they’d been shipped in, the same way the Jones Hotel had been. Some were mere tents. Still others were boats that had been pulled onto land. As they approached an intersection, Norton’s gaze was drawn to a large one in particular. A sign proclaimed it as the HOTEL NIANTIC. A door was crudely hacked in the side, above which someone had painted “REST FOR THE WEARY AND STORAGE FOR TRUNKS.

“Well this is quite a sight,” said Norton. He considered all the abandoned ships in a new light.

“You t’aint seen the half of it,” said Donohue. “I’ve been here since June, that tub came in here in July. The entire crew deserted immediately and headed to the gold fields.”

“Immediately?” asked Norton. “Oh dear. This reminds me, I should check in with my captain and see how that’s going.”

“Do you have a warehouse?” asked Eastland.

“Not as yet,” said Norton. “I need to find some land, but I doubt it will be cheap now. These ships give me ideas. But first, I need to find a newspaper.”

“There’s only one,” said Donohue. “The Alta-California. There used to be two, but the employees all quit and ran off to the gold fields, so some enterprising man bought them both.”

“Ran off to the gold fields. That seems to be a common theme,” muttered Norton.

“Are you gonna run off to the gold fields?” asked Eastland, a small bit of needling in his voice.

“It’s not my profession,” said Norton dryly.

“Come on, the old post office is up this way,” said Donohue. “We’ll see what Alcalde Geary is up to this fine Saturday.”

The four men walked up the wooden sidewalks of Clay Street and found themselves looking upon Portsmouth Square. A small park with pathways in a double cross pattern was the centerpiece, and people of all sorts milled about. While the four men were not the only ones to be dressed in morning jackets, they were not part of a majority. Dusty men with blue denim dungarees seemed to be everywhere, playing games of chance or talking loudly about claims and grubstakes.

At the far south west corner of the park were a group of Chinese men, wearing black or grey jackets with no collars. All of them had long braids that snaked down their backs, and Norton noticed them walk towards the Kearny and Clay street corner of the park. They headed towards a large building on Kearny Street with an open front window and wonderful smells coming from it. A large sign had chinese lettering on it, and under that printed in large block letters MACAO AND WOOSUNG RESTAURANT and “Chinese Food” underneath that.

Donohue noticed Norton’s gaze. “That just opened up. Great food. Goldarn cheap.”

“I’ve never eaten Chinese food,” said Norton.

“Someone at school told me they invented noodles,” said Robertson. Everyone looked at him and he suddenly turned red.

“Well they have good noodles,” said Donohue.

“Here we are,” said Eastland. “There seems to be a line.”

The Alcalde’s office was a small adobe building on the northwest side of the park. Four muddy walls made up the structure, two long and two short in an arrangement that formed a long shed. They held up a slanted roof covered with clay tiles. The door was very large, in keeping with the building’s past as a customs house. There was a sign nailed to the wall next to the door, painted in script.

“OFFICE OF THE ALCALDE

San Francisco, Formerly Yerba Buena”

The line was about ten people deep outside the door. As they walked up, a couple of dusty prospector types walked out and the line advanced a few more feet. After a few seconds, this happened again. And then it happened again less than a few seconds later. They got in line, and after a few seconds it was obvious that the line was constantly growing at the same rate it was shrinking. Within one minute they were inside the door.

The inside of the building looked pretty much the way you would expect from the outside — the walls were plastered mud, and the ceiling was boards that slanted from one side to the other. The area they walked into had a small table with a man in uniform sitting at it. To the side against the wall were ten chairs. Two of them were occupied by the aforementioned dusty prospector types, four were occupied by men in suits. As they walked in, they saw what made the line move so fast.

“Do you have an appointment?” said the uniformed man behind the table.

“No,” said the next person in line.

“We have an appointment in two weeks at two o’clock in the afternoon if you’d like that.”

“Yes, please.”

Names and contact information were exchanged, and the man in line left to bide his time until a fortnight had passed and his appointment rolled around. Norton noticed that there was another door, and this was certainly where the alcalde’s work office was. He obviously had someone in there.

“Do you have an appointment?” said the uniformed man behind the table.

At this moment there seemed to be a commotion just outside the front door. The last man in line out the door turned around, then looked back inside, then ran out the door. The new last person in line heard this and turned around with a confused look on his face. He backed up outside the door, then audibly gasped. Everyone else inside the building was paying attention at this point, as his head popped back in the door.

“Hey! There’s a woman walking down the street!”

With the exception of Norton, Donohue, Eastland, Robertson and the uniformed man behind the table, every man in the small room stood up and made a dash for the door.

The remaining men looked at each other with the exception of Robertson, who looked at the door in confusion.

“That figures,” spat Donohue. “I seen about two women myself since I got here in June. Too many men in this town.”

Norton snorted. “Every moment that cargo sits in the harbor is every moment I am spending money without making any in this town,” he said. “I suspect it may be that women are too expensive in this town as well.”

Everyone collected in laughed loudly at the exact moment the Alcalde walked out with a thin looking man dressed in a ratty suit.

The two men could not have looked less alike. The alcalde was a towering rock of a man, standing well taller than the other man by at least half a foot. Dressed in the uniform of the United States Army, his full beard and stern blue eyes drank in everyone in the room. The other many had a beard as well, but his upper lip was shaved in the manner of the Mennonites from Pennsylvania. His suit, upon closer inspection, was not merely ratty but tattered in places, and he didn’t smell all that great either. The two men seemed rather familiar with each other though, in a stern unsmiling sort of way.

“Geary, there you are!” said Donohue. “Come out to see the woman, have you?”

The alcalde raised his eyebrows. “There’s a woman?”

“Outside, that’s why there’s nobody in here,” said the man at the desk.

Geary huffed. “Well, might as well get you out of the way since you’re here, Donohue.”

The man at the table looked up at Geary. “I haven’t even gotten to him yet,” he said.

“I have an appointment,” said Donohue. “You remember my new engineer, Mr. Eastland.”

“I do indeed,” said Mr. Geary, as he and Eastland shook hands.

“And this is Mr. Norton, from South Africa, Cape Town,” said Donohue.

“Joshua Norton, at your service,” said Norton, offering his hand. He was not surprised to find that Mr. Geary knew all the proper Masonic hand greetings and responses.

“This is Mr. Lick,” said Geary, introducing his messy previous appointment. “Mr. Lick here is one of the foremost landlords in town. We’ve just been having some serious conversations about crime.”

“It’s nice to meet you all,” rasped Mr. Lick in a totally unconvincing tone. He did not offer his hand to anyone.

“Landlord?” asked Norton. “I’m on the hunt for an office.”

Mr. Lick looked him up and down. “I was just about to walk down to the Alta and put some advertisements in.”

“I only just arrived last night,” explained Norton. “I have a great many things to do, but I would love to see whatever space in an actual building you have.”

Lick looked at him for a second and threw back his head in a roar of laughter. “Next thing you know you’ll want a floor too!”

“I’m sorry, is that a problem?” asked Norton.

“We do have buildings with floors in San Francisco,” said Geary. “I’m afraid Mr. Lick finds some odd things funny.”

“I find odd people funny,” said Mr. Lick. “At any rate, I must take my leave of you. Here is my card, Mr. Norton.”

He handed Norton a card that said “JAMES LICK — FINE PIANOS — SALES AND RENTALS — MONTGOMERY AND JACKSON” and said “Goodbye, newcomers!”

“See you next week,” said Geary as Lick walked out the door. “Now what can I do for you Donohue?”

“You remember that lot at First Street and Mission Road I set my tent up on? Me and my brothers are looking to make it official now.”

He ushered Donohue into his office as Eastland caught Norton’s eye.

“We should leave Peter to it,” he said. “We can come back here on your business once we have your business established here. For now I can take you to Naglee.”

###

“The bank is over there, on the ground floor of the Parker House,” said Eastland, pointing across the square at a large boarding house that looked brand new. A sign on the second floor said PARKER HOUSE in large block letters. “They rent the top floors there out for $10,000 a month at the moment. Mostly to professional gamblers.”

Eastland, Norton and Robertson walked east, away from the adobe building in Portsmouth Square towards Kearny Street. What lots didn’t have buildings on them had vigorous construction work happening on them. Eastland pointed towards one lot directly ahead with a building going up on it.

“They’re going to move city hall offices in a month or so to a larger building on the square here. That one probably. The Jenny Lind theater at night, city hall by day.”

“All in good time,” said Norton. “What are they doing about selling land?”

“Well, the alcalde has talked about putting lots up for auction to raise money for the city. They still use spanish measurements here, so each lot is measured in varas. A vara is about 33 inches to you and me. Vara means “rod” in Spanish but it’s not like an English rod. They sell them in fifty vara plots, and four 50 vara plots make one block. They are also selling water plots, that’s cheaper if you can commandeer a vessel to ground on a water plot.”

Norton considered this and all the boats in the harbor.

“This all reminds me, I must see to the goods on board the Genesee. Where can I find a newspaper?”

Eastland pointed across the park. “Over on Pike Street,” he said. “A man just opened a store with newspapers from around the world, they come by sidewheel steamer now.”

“Show me,” said Norton.

#

Norton set the newspaper down on the table next to the chair he sat in. His cigar smouldered in an ashtray on the table, and he picked it up to consider thoughtfully the contents of the newspaper. Night was falling after he’d spent marveling at the wonderful hour that the setting sun turned everything to gold. His balcony at the hotel had a wonderful view, and as he watched the castle on Telegraph Hill a mile away lit up as someone inside lit an oil lamp to swat away the coming darkness.

On the street, things seemed to be getting rowdy. He could hear the noise increasing in the western quarter of the town, four blocks away as the crow flies. A cacophony of pianos for the most part, and a sound as if a crowd was murmuring. A gunshot rang out, then another — he had slept too well his first night to hear them, he imagined. Norton stood up, collected his cigar and newspaper, and walked inside.

He had a lot to do on Monday, and it worried him that he had no message from Captain Keene waiting for him when he got back. He decided to contact the captain himself if he had not heard from him by Monday.

###

Click here for Chapter Three.

New chapters are posted every Monday morning. If you would like to read ahead on my rough drafts, the latest drafts are always on my Patreon Page at https://www.patreon.com/tjcrowley/. You can read it before anyone else for $1.