The Santa Margarita Ranch House Bell's place of casting and the year it was first hung on the ranch house front porch are unknown. It may have been brought to California from Spain or Mexico by Franciscan missionaries, or it may have been a ship's bell from a sailing vessel that visited the California coast in the early 1800's. For over a century, it played an important role in the daily routine of the Santa Margarita Ranch, ringing each morning at 5:00 a.m. as an awakening call for all hands to groom and feed the horses needed for ranch operations, at 6:00 a.m. for breakfast, at 12:00 noon for lunch, and at 6:00 p.m. for dinner. It was not rung at other times except as an alarm in an emergency such as a fire. The only exceptions were when it tolled at the death of Richard O'Neill Sr. in 1910 and at the deaths of James Flood II and Jerome O'Neill in 1926. The Baumgartner family took the bell from the ranch house in 1942 as a memento and kept it at the ranches of John J. Baumgartner, Jr. in San Benito and Santa Clara Counties until 1974, when Elizabeth Baumgartner Yates, John J. Baumgartner, Jr. and Jerome O. Baumgartner returned it to the Santa Margarita Ranch House.