I could be wrong, but I don't really think that the belgian naturals were the "Norton stones" of their day since they are and probably were very rare stones. Where are you getting that idea? According to this website: http://pacifi.ca/Temp/BBHistory.html
the sharpening properties (i.e garnet content) of the blue belgian stones was not discovered until 1996/1997. To me this implies that they were not commonly used 100 years ago. My understanding is that barbers used various barber hones to set a bevel and polish them. Medium or course barber hones would be used to set the bevel, then finer hones were used for the polishing. Also lather and light pressure could be used to make a fairly course hone act finer. I believe that there were also various pastes available for polishing.