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Noah Norton

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Noah Norton (April 7, 1786 – January 31, 1877) was a government agent, museum founder, and California Gold Rush prospector. He was instrumental in founding the towns of Adrian, Michigan and Nortonville, California.

Early life

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Norton was born in Greene County, New York, on April 7, 1786. As a young man, he moved near Lake Ontario and became a government officer having the duty to stop the smuggling of contraband traffic across the US-Canada border.[1]

When the War of 1812 commenced, he volunteered and served as a Lieutenant and participated in the Battle of Lundy's Lane.[1]

Life in Michigan

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After the war, Norton relocated his family to a wilderness area that would eventually become Adrian, Michigan. In 1827, the Norton residence was the site of the first church service in Adrian.[2]

Norton volunteered during the Mexican–American War (1846–1848) and became a member of the secret service. After the Mexican–American War, he spent a short time back in Adrian, then embarked on a mission to gather specimens and other objects of interest for a museum in Pensacola, Florida. He later founded a museum of his own at Adrian.[1]

Life in California

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During the California Gold Rush (1848–1855), he disposed of the museum and joined a wagon train for California. He took the so-called "southern route," and was one of the first settlers of Los Angeles, California in 1850.[1]

After a few years working in Los Angeles as a farmer, Norton returned to Adrian where his wife soon died. He later remarried and moved back to California, this time settling in Contra Costa County, California, where he prospected for coal.[1] In 1861, he founded the town of Nortonville, California,[1] where a large coal mine named the "Black Diamond" was located.[3] Nortonville is now part of the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, managed by the East Bay Regional Park District.[4]

His wife, Sarah Norton, became a locally famous midwife who met a violent death in October, 1879, by a runaway horse pulling her carriage. Her son would later be the person to place his Mother at Rose Hill Cemetery in what is now Black Diamond Regional Park.[5] She is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery, at Nortonville, where it is rumored that she periodically presents herself to visitors as a white ghost.[6]

Death and burial

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Noah Norton died on January 31, 1877, and is buried in the Webster Family Plot (Plot #1) at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.[7] (The Websters were his grandchildren.)[8]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 History of Contra Costa County, California (PDF). San Francisco: W. A. Slocum & Co. 1882. pp. 462–478, 626–627. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 21, 2024. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  2. ↑ W. A. Whitney and R. I. Bonner, History and Biographical Record of Lenawee County, Michigan, W. Stearns & Co., 1879, page 51.
  3. ↑ Traci Parent and Karen Terhune, Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, Arcadia Publishing, 2009, pages 9-11.
  4. ↑ Traci Parent and Karen Terhune, Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, Arcadia Publishing, 2009, pages 115-126.
  5. ↑ Traci Parent and Karen Terhune, Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, Arcadia Publishing, 2009, page 69.
  6. ↑ Ghost Stories, https://paranormalstories.blogspot.com/2007/04/black-diamond-mines.html Retrieved on 20 January 2011; The White Witch of Nortonville, http://www.thriftymoving.com/rosehill.html Retrieved on 20 January 2011.
  7. ↑ David Johnson, California Tombstone Project, http://www.usgwtombstones.org/california/californ.html
  8. ↑ William Holcolm Webster and Rev. Melville Reuben Webster, History and Genealogy of the Gov. John Webster Family of Connecticut, E. R. Andrews Printing Company, 1915, page 641.
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