Daniel M. Norton

Daniel M. Norton, later Daniel McNorton, (c. 1843 – November 29, 1918) was a doctor and state legislator in Virginia. Norton served in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868. He was a member of the Virginia General Assembly, as were his brothers F. S. Norton (1869/71) and Robert Norton (1869-1874, 1876-1883).

Early life Norton was born in Williamsburg, Virginia, reportedly the son of his enslaved mother and her owner. In his teens, he and another brother Robert escaped to freedom in Troy, New York. Daniel received medical training from a doctor there and thereafter was often called "Doctor Norton”. In January 1860, Norton married his wife Edmonie in Philadelphia. By 1865, the two brothers had become prosperous barbers in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Following the Convention, Norton continued his involvement in Republican politics, unsuccessfully seeking the party’s nomination for U.S. Congress three times. In the meantime he continued to acquire properties in York County, including much of the property in the African-American community in York County called Slabtown or Uniontown. Daniel Norton married Sarah A. Gant in Muskingum County, Ohio, on December 28, 1871.

During his career was a leader both within the Readjuster Republicans, and African-American Republicans as a splinter group. During his tenure on the Committees on General Laws, on Federal Relations, and on Public Institutions, he sponsored four bills the Assembly passed, and he nominated two county judges whom the Assembly elected. Norton nominated Benjamin W. Lacy to the Supreme Court of Appeals, and presided over the Senate of Virginia on April 7, 1882. During this period Norton won legislation to authorize him, his brother Robert Norton and three others to operate a ferry between Yorktown and Gloucester Point.

Following the white “redeeming” of Virginia in the 1883 elections, Daniel Norton was again reelected. He became a member of the first Board of Visitors for the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (later Virginia State University), and passed a bill providing for an annual eight-week summer session for African-American public school teachers there. Though Norton secured a position as an inspector in the Newport News Customs House as a political appointment, a break with U.S. Senator William Mahone led to the end of Norton's state senate career.

In later years, Norton served as a justice of the peace in Yorktown until 1917. He continued to expand his real estate holdings. By 1894, he not only owned sixty-eight acres in York County, but fourteen and a half lots in Yorktown, including the old customs house.

Death Daniel M. Norton died of interstitial nephritis in his wife’s hometown of Zanesville, Ohio on November 29, 1918.