Daniel M. Norton ( –1918)

Biographical Information

• Age 23 on June 3, 1865, Massachusetts State Census, Massachusetts Archives, Boston, Massachusetts
• Age 28 on August 6, 1870, in United States Census Schedules, York County, 1870; age 38 on June 21, 1880, in U.S. Census Schedules, York County, 1880; birth date of October 1849 in U.S. Census Schedules, York County, 1900; and no age reported in U.S. Census Schedules, York County, 1910 (listed as Daniel M. McNorton), all in Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
• Norton's testimony before Congress (with age "About 26" on February 3, 1866) in Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction at the First Session Thirty-Ninth Congress, Part II: Virginia—North Carolina—South Carolina (1866), 51–52 (quotation)
• First marriage in affidavit of Edmonia Norton, September 25, 1867, in Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Virginia (1865–1868), Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, Record Group 105, Volume 499, 151–152, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
• Second marriage in Muskingum County Marriage Record, Vol. 6, p. 427, Muskingum County, Ohio
• Account of freedpeople defying the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands to support Norton as their representative in F. I. Massey to O. Brown, May 1, 1866 in Records of the Field Offices for the State of Virginia (1865–1872), Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, Monthly Reports, Roll 202, Record Group 105, M1913, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
• Death certificate, with name as Daniel McNorton and with age "abt 72" (no. 34457) in Elizabeth City County, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Health, Record Group 36, Library of Virginia
• Biography in Luther P. Jackson, Negro Office-Holders in Virginia, 1865–1895 (1945), 30, 31 (photograph)
• Biography in "Daniel M. Norton—Another Character for History Week," Norfolk Journal and Guide, National Edition, February 15, 1947

Political Career

• Secretary of the Commonwealth, Election Records, 1776–1941, no. 427, Accession 38055, Barcode 1151341, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia
• Debates and Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Virginia, Assembled at the City of Richmond, Tuesday, December 3, 1867… (1868), esp. 30, 60, 87–89, 252–253, 492–493, 553, 639
• Richard L. Hume, "The Membership of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1867–1868: A Study of the Beginnings of Congressional Reconstruction in the Upper South," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 86 (1978): 483
• Richard G. Lowe, "Virginia's Reconstruction Convention: General Schofield Rates the Delegates," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 80 (1972): 359
• Norton's election to Senate of Virginia in 1871 (Election Record No. 3), 1877 (Election Record No. 9), 1879 (Election Record No. 12), and 1883 (Election Record No. 18), all in Secretary of the Commonwealth, Election Records, 1776–1941, Accession 26041, State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia
• Norton's testimony about 1874 campaign for the House of Representatives in Papers in the Matter of James H. Platt, Jr. vs. John Goode, Jr., Second Congressional District of Virginia, 44th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Miscellaneous Document 65 (1876), pp. 379–386

Newspapers
Norton's political career is well documented in Virginia newspapers, 1868–1888, but see especially:

• Richmond Daily State Journal, July 10, 1871
• Richmond Daily Whig, October 31, 1879; March 16, 1881
• Richmond Daily Dispatch, April 8, 1882
• Richmond State, October 31, 1887
• New York Herald, October 27, 1888

Obituaries

• Newport News Daily Press, November 30, 1918
• Journal of the American Medical Association, 71 (December 15, 1918): 2091

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