At last, with shouts and yells from the competing drivers, almost as deafening as the horn-blowing of a somewhat later date, and hailed apparently by every inhabitant and dog along the route, we arrived at the only real hotel in town, the Bella Union, where stages stopped and every city function took place. This hotel was a one-story, adobe house enlarged in 1858 to two stories, and located on Main Street above Commercial; and Dr. Obed Macy, who had bought it the previous spring from Winston & Hodges, was the proprietor.
Bella Union as it Appeared in 1858
From a lithograph
John Goller's Blacksmith Shop
From a lithograph of 1858
My friend, Sam Meyer (now deceased, but for fifty years or more treasurer of Forty-two, the oldest Masonic lodge in Los Angeles), who had come here a few months in advance of me, awaited the arrival of the stage and at once recognized me by my costume, which was anything but in harmony with Southern California fashions of that time. My brother, J. P. Newmark, not having seen me for several years, thought that our meeting ought to be private, and so requested Sam to show me to his store. I was immediately taken to my brother's place of business where he received me with great affection; and there and then we renewed that sympathetic association which continued many years, until his death in 1895.
CHAPTER IV
FIRST ADVENTURES IN LOS ANGELES
1853
Once fairly well settled here, I began to clerk for my brother, who in 1852 had bought out a merchant named Howard. For this service I received my lodging, the cost of my board, and thirty dollars each month. The charges for board at the Bella Union—then enjoying a certain prestige, through having been the official residence of Pio Pico when Stockton took the city—were too heavy, and arrangements were made with a Frenchman named John La Rue, who had a restaurant on the east side of Los Angeles Street, about two hundred feet south of Bell's Row. I paid him nine dollars a week for three more or less hearty meals a day, not including eggs, unless I provided them; in this case he agreed to prepare them for me. Eggs were by no means scarce; but steaks and mutton and pork chops were the popular choice, and potatoes and vegetables a customary accompaniment.