Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I, Emperor of San Francisco and these United States.
Always a welcoming city, San Francisco hosted the emergence of many colorful characters over the years. One whose history illustrates San Francisco’s tolerance and embrace of the different, the quirky, and the eccentric was English-born Joshua Abraham Norton.
Norton journeyed to San Francisco via South Africa in the mid-1850s. He arrived with some wealth, but lost it in a financial deal gone sour. Shortly thereafter, in 1859, he proclaimed himself Emperor Norton
Always a welcoming city, San Francisco hosted the emergence of many colorful characters over the years. One whose history illustrates San Francisco’s tolerance and embrace of the different, the quirky, and the eccentric was English-born Joshua Abraham Norton.
Norton journeyed to San Francisco via South Africa in the mid-1850s. He arrived with some wealth, but lost it in a financial deal gone sour. Shortly thereafter, in 1859, he proclaimed himself Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I, Emperor of these United States.
As described on a Voice of America broadcast:
Emperor Norton usually did not have any money. But he did not need any. If Emperor Norton went to a restaurant, he was served a meal — free. If he needed something little from a store, that was also freely given. Sometimes he paid with his own kind of money…paper money with his picture on it.
