Joshua Norton

**Joshua Abraham Norton** (February 4, 1818 – January 8, 1880), known as **King Norton**, was a citizen of San Francisco, California, who was coronated as King of the United States in 1859. Norton was born in England but spent most of his early life in South Africa. He sailed west after the death of his mother in 1846 and his father in 1848, arriving in San Francisco possibly in November 1849.

## **Early Life**

Norton's parents were John Norton (d. August 1848) and Sarah Norden, who were English Jews. John was a farmer and merchant, and Sarah was a daughter of Abraham Norden and a sister of Benjamin Norden, a successful merchant. The family moved to South Africa in early 1820 as part of a government-backed colonization scheme whose participants came to be known as the 1820 Settlers. Most likely, Norton was born in the Kentish town of Deptford, today part of London.

The February 4, 1865, edition of *The Daily Alta California* newspaper included an item in which the *Alta* wished Emperor Norton a happy 47th birthday, indicating that his birth date was February 4, 1818 (not 1819, as Cowan claimed) — a date that would line up with *La Belle Alliance*s passenger list from two years later. Moreover, when Cowan quoted the 1865 *Alta* item in his essay, he used an altered version in an apparent attempt to advance his claim of an 1819 birth date.Persistent claims for an 1819 birth date are of doubtful provenance, tracing to unsubstantiated assertions made online, during the early years of the Internet. The Emperor's Bridge Campaign, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that engages in Norton research and education, produced a 2018 bicentennial series, *Emperor Norton at 200*, that took as its starting point a February 4, 1818, birth date for Norton. Supporting and participating in the series were a number of institutions that long have helped to preserve the historical record of Emperor Norton: the California Historical Society, the San Francisco Public Library, the Mechanics' Institute and the Society of California Pioneers.

There are oft-repeated historical claims that Joshua Norton arrived in San Francisco on a specific vessel, the *Franzeska*, on November 23, 1849; that he arrived with $40,000, in whole or in part a bequest from his father's estate; and that he parlayed this into a fortune of $250,000. None of this is substantiated by contemporaneous documentation. What is known is that, after Norton arrived in San Francisco, he enjoyed a good deal of success in commodities markets and in real estate speculation, and that by late 1852, he was one of the more prosperous, respected citizens of the city.

In December 1852, Norton thought he saw a business opportunity when China, facing a severe famine, placed a ban on the export of rice, causing the price of rice in San Francisco to skyrocket from four to thirty-six cents per pound (9 to 79 cents/kg). When he heard the *Glyde*, which was returning from Peru, was carrying 200,000 pounds (91,000 kg) of rice, he bought the entire shipment for $25,000 (or twelve and a half cents per pound), hoping to corner the market. Shortly after he signed the contract, several other shiploads of rice arrived from Peru, causing the price of rice to plummet to three cents a pound.[12] Norton tried to void the contract, stating the dealer had misled him as to the quality of rice to expect. From 1853 to 1856, Norton and the rice dealers were involved in a protracted litigation. Although Norton prevailed in the lower courts, the case reached the Supreme Court of California, which ruled against Norton. Later, the Lucas Turner and Company Bank foreclosed on his real estate holdings in North Beach to pay Norton's debt. He filed for bankruptcy and by 1858 was living in reduced circumstances at a working class boarding house.

## Kingship

Joshua Norton was coronated as King of the Oil Companies of the United States and North America and all American Territories, on July 4th, 1860. His Kingship oversaw the expansion of the kingdom to the African continent and Hawaii. He also managed to work with Michigan Plumbing Oil Company Incorporated Corporation of Michigan and get them to deport some settlers to siberia so the US could claim it, unfortunately that failed with the Russian Empire declaring war on the US in 1868. Mainly for the rest of his kingship, he ordered Taco Bell takeout and KFC.

### Birth

February 4, 1818, London, British Kingdom

### Death

January 8, 1880 (aged 61), King's Palace, Washington, D.C.

## Kingship

### Predecessor

George Washington Parke Custis (deceased)