The Square Pegs

by Irving Wallace

  In 1820, when Joshua Norton was two, his family joined four thousand other English colonists in a pioneering migration to Grahamstown, South Africa. There his father bought and tilled a farm, and eventually, helped found Algoa Bay, now known as Port Elizabeth. By the time Joshua Norton was twenty, his father had expanded his interests to part ownership of a general store in Cape Town which specialized in ships’ supplies. Of young Norton’s African years we know little. He enlisted for a short term as a colonial soldier. He worked as a clerk in his father’s store. When his father began to outfit vessels of his own, he took charge of a two-masted brigantine and in 1844 sailed it to Peru and Chile, where he lost money on the venture.

  When Joshua Norton was thirty his father followed his mother to an early grave. The business that Norton inherited proved of little value, and he soon liquidated it and sailed for Brazil, where he is thought to have made quick profits on several merchandising investments. Meanwhile, near the city of Sacramento in far-off California, a workman had discovered gold on Captain John Sutter’s properties. Immediately, the great gold-rush was on, and almost a quarter of a million persons were on the way to California. Norton heard the sensational news in Brazil. Without roots, with a normal hunger for sudden wealth, he decided to participate in the gamble.

  With $40,000 in savings and inheritance in his trunk, Norton boarded the small German schooner Franziska at Rio de Janeiro. He and six other passengers endured 101 monotonous, impatient days at sea. But on the bleak, cold Friday morning of November 23, 1849, their little vessel plodded past the Golden Gate and lay at anchor amid the numerous abandoned and neglected ships dotting San Francisco Bay.

  Norton, tall and imposing in his purple cape, joined his fellow passengers in a longboat and was rowed ashore at Montgomery Street, the very center of the business district. The sight that met his eyes as he proceeded into the boom town was unforgettable. Only a year before, San Francisco had been a sleepy village of several hundred inhabitants and fifty adobe huts. Overnight it had been transformed into a bustling, unruly, filthy Mecca for gold diggers. Canvas tents, rude lean-tos, wooden shanties, and brick hotels housed twenty thousand visitors. The muddy, winding streets, filled with rubbish, cluttered with unpacked merchandise, crowded with wagons pushing to the mines, were flanked by an incredible variety of stores, brothels, warehouses, and saloons. In the jammed streets, raucously shoving and pushing, were not only native Americans, white, black, brown, and red, but also pigtailed Chinese, turbaned Hindus, serape-covered Spaniards, Australians, Malayans, Italians, Russians, and Scandinavians. Amid the influx of foreigners the fastidious and very English Joshua Norton was hardly noticed at all. He located a hotel and signed the register, giving his occupation as “traveling merchant.”

  If Norton intended to become a forty-niner, he soon enough sensed that El Dorado was more readily accessible in the business life of San Francisco than in the backbreaking and precarious gold-fields of Upper California. As the population increased from 20,000 to 90,000, as the demands for food, clothing, construction material, and mining supplies grew louder, Norton realized that a fortune might be made by shrewd trading. But this was a risk even for an experienced businessman like himself. The commodity market was utterly unpredictable. Importing was a costly business. One’s judgment had to be sound, for lack of storage space required immediate auctioning of goods. If a scarcity existed at the moment, tremendous profits were possible. If the market happened to be glutted, great losses were inevitable. Still, the population was growing, the need was insistent, and Joshua Norton decided to chance it.

  In less than two months Norton opened an office at 242 Montgomery Street, overlooking the city’s main thoroughfare, and hazarded his $40,000 in speculation. As a commission agent he bought and sold, for himself and for others, mines, buildings, and extensive lots of real estate. Eventually, he and a partner named Robertson built a huge store-and-warehouse on which “was painted “Joshua Norton & Company.” They imported coal, bricks, and beef, held their goods until they were in demand, and then unloaded at great gain. In May 1851 a ten-hour fire wiped out eighteen city blocks, the entire business district, and, of course, the wooden structure of Joshua Norton & Company. Shortly after, having dismissed his partner, Norton erected a building of his own just one block from his old location. He dealt successfully in coal, tea, flour, coffee, and rice. In the end, his enthusiasm for rice was to lead to his financial downfall and his elevation to royalty.

  By early 1853 he had amassed a fortune of $250,000. Now he evolved a scheme that would make him even wealthier. As the owner of California’s first rice mill he had been keenly aware of periods when the community suffered gaping shortages of flour. He had seen the price of unhusked rice jump from 4 cents a pound to 32. A shortage loomed again. China had banned exportation of rice to California, and San Francisco’s meager supply was rapidly dwindling. Norton determined to corner the rice market. Aware that complete control would enable him to set his own price on this staple commodity, he began to buy every kernel of rice in the vicinity. Then, to protect his immense holdings, he began to buy every shipment of rice that came to port. When a South American vessel, owned by three Peruvians named Ruiz, arrived with 200,000 pounds of rice, Norton absorbed the entire cargo for $25,000, of which sum he paid down $2,000 in cash. When other shipments followed, Norton absorbed these, too.

  Then, suddenly, it seemed that every nation was pouring rice into San Francisco. In less than a month, three more vessels arrived, all laden with barrels of rice, one of them carrying 250,000 pounds of it. Norton no longer possessed sufficient funds to absorb the flood and contain the price. He was obliged to allow these and other shipments to be auctioned on the open market. He had purchased his rice at 13 cents a pound, and now he saw the commodity dip to 8. It fell as low as 3 cents before he was able to dispose of his holdings.

  He was almost bankrupt. Swiftly, his difficulties compounded. Late in 1853 another fire razed five hundred buildings, among them Norton’s new store-and-warehouse. He viewed the disaster, remarked one observer, “as a man dazed by a tremendous grief.” Meanwhile, he still owed a balance of $23,000 to the three Peruvians. Arguing that the rice had been inferior in quality, he refused to pay. He was promptly sued, and after almost three years of nerve-racking legal disagreement a jury awarded the Peruvians $20,000 in damages. During those painful years, Norton halfheartedly tried to reestablish himself as a broker in gold dust, but the effort failed miserably. When he lost his lawsuit there was nothing to do but to declare bankruptcy. In November 1856 his assets, worth $15,000, were disposed of by the sheriff, and his debts were listed in the district court as amounting to $55,811.

  He was only thirty-eight, but his mammoth failure seemed to deprive him of all energy and ambition. He wanted no more of commerce and competition. Injured in pride and pocket, his head filled with fancied persecutions, he withdrew to the privacy of his expensive room in the Tehama House to brood on the world’s wrongs. When he could no longer afford the room he moved to a cheap boardinghouse and supported himself by working as a clerk for a Chinese rice company and by receiving some aid from the British consulate.

  Eventually, he quit his job and retreated to his room to meditate. Loyal business acquaintances and fellow members of the Pacific Club visited him regularly. Though deeply depressed, Norton remained quite sane. In his hermitage he read considerably and conversed with his visitors, and with the passage of time his personal losses receded. His new worry, and obsession, was the troubled state of the Union. The Dred Scott case was in the news. The Lincoln-Douglas debates were being publicized. Tension between North and South was building up. Norton felt that war was inevitable unless stern measures were taken. A democracy, loose and inefficient, could not cope with internal strife, he contended. Only the firm hand of monarchy, a monarchy such as England possessed, could guarantee peace. What America needed, Norton concluded, was an autocratic ruler. So often did he expound on this archaic argument, that eventually, his call
ers began to refer to him, and address him, jestingly, as “His Gracious Highness” and “Emperor.” And soon enough, he asked himself: why not?

  On the evening of September 17, 1859, the editors of the San Francisco Bulletin informed their readers that “a well-dressed and serious-looking man” had visited them and “quietly left the following document, which he respectfully requested we would examine and insert.” The document followed:

  At the peremptory request and desire 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 last 9 years and 10 months past of San Francisco, California, declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these United States; and in virtue of the authority thereby in me vested, do hereby order and direct the representatives of the different States of the Union to assemble in Musical Hall, of this city, on the 1st 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 cause confidence to exist, both at home and abroad, in our stability and integrity.

  NORTON I,

  EMPEROR OF THE UNITED STATES.

  Most historians who were to record the years of Norton’s reign found it easiest to explain his ascension from businessman to monarch by stating that he had become “demented,” a “mental derelict” because of his bankruptcy. There is no evidence that he was actually insane. While his distaste for business and his desire for attention led him to side-step reality, he was never completely out of touch with it. If many of his notions were fanciful, others were shrewd and sensible. Because his prosperity and happiness depended upon being noticed, he made himself noticed. And in his make-believe role he contrived to survive more comfortably than many who jeered him. Unable to contend with the pitfalls and pressures of the commercial world, he found a new profession and created half a world of his own. Like Napoleon Bonaparte (whom he detested), he crowned himself and established himself in a highly uncompetitive field. Thus, in 1859, encouraged by friends who could not believe he was serious, Joshua Abraham Norton, deposed businessman, emerged from seclusion as Emperor of the United States by popular demand.

  Shortly after his astounding proclamation in the Bulletin, he appeared in public for the first time as Emperor. Gone were the somber, conventional trappings of the man of commerce. In their place was an outfit distinctly military. From the local Presidio, Norton had salvaged an officer’s secondhand uniform. It was light blue, and trimmed with gold epaulets and brass buttons. On his head he wore a general’s cap decorated in red, which he later discarded for the tall beaver-hat with the feather. In his buttonhole he wore a rose, and at his side a heavy saber acquired from a blacksmith. His feet were shod in navy boots cut open at the sides to give his corns more freedom. In fair weather he sported a walking stick, in rainy weather a colorful Chinese umbrella.

  His first appearance in the streets of San Francisco created a gratifying sensation. He moved swiftly to consolidate this good will. Less than a month after his initial proclamation, another appeared in the Bulletin. The Emperor decreed that since “fraud and corruption prevent a fair and proper expression of the public voice,” the moment had come for drastic action. Therefore, “We do hereby abolish Congress, and it is hereby abolished.” When Washington took no notice Norton was incensed. A supplementary proclamation was made public. “We do hereby Order and Direct Major General Scott, the Commander-in-Chief of our Armies, immediately on receipt of this our Decree, to proceed with a suitable force and clear the Halls of Congress.” Lest this was not clear, there was one more document to astound the citizenry. “We, Norton I, by the grace of God and the National Will, Emperor of the Thirty-three States and the multitude of Territories of the United States, do hereby dissolve the Republic of the United States of North America.” With the suggestion that the governors of the states maintain order until he had taken over full control, Norton abolished “the Democratic and Republican parties” and prepared to stage his long-announced convention.

  The convention was scheduled for February 1, 1860, in San Francisco’s Musical Hall. A week before the meeting the hall burned to the ground. Undismayed, Norton announced that the convention would proceed four days later at the Assembly Hall. The Bulletin predicted a full house, and thought the meeting would “be a great day for California.” At the last moment, either because he lacked money to pay for the hall or had forgotten to notify delegates, the convention was canceled. Nevertheless, Norton permitted his long-prepared opening address of welcome to be made public:

  “At the request of a large majority of the citizens of the Republic, you have been directed to assemble here, this day, to ratify, alter, or reject, a proposed alteration of the form of your government. An alteration is demanded and insisted upon, or We should not have been entrusted with the authority to have called a Convention of the Nation for that object… .”

  With the convention out of the way and his authority still unopposed, the Emperor turned to the very real and immediate problem of the privy purse. To rule a great nation or, at least, to survive personally required a considerable sum of money. Norton set his mind to this grim task at once. At first he wrote checks on banks in which he had no accounts. This indiscretion might have shortened his reign had not the sums been extremely modest and the bankers his old friends. Soon enough he hit upon a happier expedient. He conceived the idea of issuing “Bonds of the Empire.” These came off the presses of Charles A. Murdock without charge, the printer having been promised the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer in return for the favor. Each bond, illustrated with a portrait of the Emperor as well as with reproductions of the Stars and Stripes and the California State Seal, was worth fifty cents. In twenty years the buyer was promised the repayment of his fifty cents with 5 per cent interest.

  When the bonds did not suffice to meet his vast royal expenditures Norton was forced to resort to a system of taxation. Disdaining the bureaucracy of a revenue department, he both levied and collected the taxes himself. In an account book he noted the names of all prominent business houses and the amounts they were to be assessed monthly for the advantages of his rule. Regularly, in full court attire and with account book in hand, he called upon his subjects. Struggling shopkeepers got off with twenty-five cents; wealthy bankers were commanded to pay as much as three dollars. Resistance was rare, and on a profitable day the monarch would collect as much as twenty-five dollars. Sometimes, when he had a great project in mind, a project to promote national harmony or world peace, he would discuss a loan, at 4 per cent, for millions of dollars. On these occasions, according to the Alta, he would confront a friend and “attempt to negotiate a loan of several hundred million dollars, and depart perfectly contented with a two-or four-bit piece.”

  Yet, for all of his taxation and promissory notes, he could not have maintained his high position without insisting upon his royal prerogative of free rent, food, clothing, and transportation. During the greater part of his twenty-one-year reign, he lived in a single, musty room at the rear of the Eureka Lodging House. The rent was fifty cents a day, and it was paid by the Occidental Lodge F. & A. M., which the Emperor had helped found in more prosperous times. The interior of this, his court, he had furnished himself. It consisted of a chair and table set on a faded rug, an outdoor camping-cot, a pitcher and basin resting on a broken stand. On one wall was a portrait of the Empress Eugénie. On another wall, hanging from common nails, was his wardrobe. “There were many hats,” reported a newspaperman who visited the room. “There was first an old stove-pipe hat resting side by side with a little plaster cast of himself on the table. Directly above, hanging in a row on the wall, were three more the first a derby hat. Next to this hung an old army cap bound with red lace, and next in line a regulation army hat, also trimmed with red, and which had apparently once adorned the cranium of a martial bandmaster, as was attested by the lyre which graced its front. On the wall opposite, over the bed, hung the well-known sword of th
e Emperor, and in the corner, against the bed, stood four canes, the gift of devoted ‘subjects.’”

  His clothes were cared for by a Chinese laundryman, and when the Chinese refused to accept imperial bonds as payment, Norton’s landlord assumed the expense. When his uniforms wore thin Norton approached San Francisco’s leading men’s shops for replacements. They were usually supplied. Once, when his attire was again threadbare, he went directly to his followers. “Know ye whom it may concern that I, Norton I … have heard serious complaints from our adherents and all that our imperial wardrobe is a national disgrace… . We warn those whose duty it is to attend to these affairs that their scalps are in danger if our said need is unheeded.” The said need did not go unheeded long. Rather than have their beloved monarch’s appearance bring disgrace upon his capital city, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to outfit him at public expense.

  The Emperor always ate out. Though his midday meals usually taken at the free-lunch corner of a neighborhood bar were light, he ate his dinners in the most fashionable restaurants. Though he always announced his rank upon being seated, he was known everywhere and never charged. He partook of full-course meals, was not shy about returning an entree improperly prepared, and frequently chastised waiters for inadequate service.

  While he never traveled to the far-flung corners of his Empire, he was much in evidence about his capital city. He rode the municipal streetcars without cost. He was grateful for this free passage, but not beholden. He felt it his due. Once when a fellow passenger, an elderly lady, could not find her five-cent fare, Norton advised the conductor to move on. “Let her,” he said, “be a guest of the Empire.” On his occasional trips to Sacramento and other northern cities, his railroad or steamboat berths were occupied with the compliments of their owners.