RECENT RESEARCH — It appears that, in the newspaper coverage of the 30 June 1934 ceremony dedicating Emperor Norton's new grave and headstone in Woodlawn Memorial Park, Colma, Calif., virtually all of the coverage that included photography featured one — very occasionally both — of two specific uncredited photos. Recently, we discovered that the photographs were taken by San Francisco Examiner staff photographer George Elmer Sheldon and that Sheldon actually took 6 photographs that day — including 4 photos that apparently were never published. All 6 photographs were part of a 2006 donation of photos from the San Francisco Examiner's photo morgue, c.1930–2000, to the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. We present all 6 photographs here. We believe this is the first time the four unpublished photos of the ceremony have been published outside the Berkeley database.

The Emperor Norton Trust

TO HONOR THE LIFE + ADVANCE THE LEGACY OF JOSHUA ABRAHAM NORTON

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

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Did Joshua Norton Really Arrive in San Francisco With a $40,000 Inheritance That He Built Into a Quarter-Million-Dollar Fortune in 3 Years?

According to the "received" version of the Emperor Norton story: Joshua Norton inherited $40,000 from his father's estate. At around the same time, news of the Gold Rush reached South Africa. Joshua sailed west to seek his fortune in San Francisco, where he arrived in November 1849 with the $40,000 — a nest egg that he parlayed into $250,000 within three years.

But is this how it really went down? Not likely, according to the available evidence.

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