During the fifties, the Bella Union passed under several successive managements. On July 22d, 1854, Dr. Macy sold it to W. G. Ross and a partner named Crockett. They were succeeded, on April 7th, 1855, by Robert S. Hereford. Ross was killed, some years afterward, by C. P. Duane in San Francisco.
In pursuit of business, in 1855, I made a number of trips to San Bernardino, some of which had their amusing incidents, and most of which afforded pleasure or an agreeable change. Meeting Sam Meyer on one of these occasions, just as I was mounted and ready to start, I invited him to accompany me; and as Sam assured me that he knew where to secure a horse, we started down the street together and soon passed a shop in which there was a Mexican customer holding on to a _reata_ leading out through the door to his saddled nag. Sam walked in; and having a casual acquaintance with the man, asked him if he would lend him the animal for a while? People were generous in those days; and the good-hearted Mexican, thinking perhaps that Sam was "just going around the corner," carelessly answered, "_Sí, Señor_," and proceeded with his bartering. Sam, on the other hand, came out of the shop and led the horse away! After some days of minor adventures, when we lost our path near the Old Mission and had to put back to El Monte for the night, we arrived at San Bernardino; and on our return, after watering the horses, Sam found in his unhaltered steed such a veritable Tartar that, in sheer desperation, he was about to shoot the borrowed beast!
On another one of these trips I was entertained by Simon Jackson, a merchant of that town, who took me to a restaurant kept by a Captain Weiner. This, the best eating-place in town, was about ten feet square and had a mud floor. It was a miserably hot day--so hot, in fact, that I distinctly remember the place being filled with flies, and that the butter had run to oil. Nature had not intended Weiner to cater to sensitive stomachs, at least not on the day of which I speak, and to make matters worse, Weiner was then his own waiter. He was wallowing around in his bare feet, and was otherwise unkempt and unclean; and the whole scene is therefore indelibly impressed on my memory. When the slovenly Captain bawled out: "Which will you have--chops or steak?" Jackson straightened up, threw out his chest, and in evidence of the vigor of his appetite, just as vociferously answered: "I want a steak _as big as a mule's foot_!"