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A Bell Rang in Uniontown
By Gayle Karshner

    An unusual history, A Bell Rang in Uniontown interweaves the story of Arcata, California and its Methodist Church with major events and the lives of some notable personalities. Both the town and the church began in 1850, the year Humboldt Bay was rediscovered by white gold seekers in America’s last contiguous frontier, the land of the 2,000-year-old giant coastal redwoods. You’ll meet colorful characters and dramatic adventures: first, the church’s founder, Asa White, his wife Kate, and 12 children who led a train of 120 wagons west on the Oregon Trail in 1847. White founded churches in Oregon City and San Francisco before coming to Arcata.
    For 100 years following White, the succession of ministers arrived, some brave, some timid, and a few who left a lasting mark on the church and the town. Then there was Josiah Gregg, a learned scientist and writer who discovered Humboldt Bay from inland and later died of starvation gathering scientific data in the wilderness. A companion, L.K. Wood, was permanently crippled from an encounter with a grizzly bear before settling in Arcata.
    Young Bret Harte, whose stories of the old West earned him a place in American literature, appears in Arcata’s story as the idealistic young reporter outraged by the white man’s massacre of the Wiyot natives. Another dark episode is the evacuation of all Chinese from the county.
    There is a parade of names: the long-time church members; the town characters; the humorous human stories that are part of the fabric of any small town. The appendix lists pastors, baptisms and marriages. Major events and changing customs are also part of the story. Outstanding old photographs and maps give a real sense of what it was like in the last half of the 1800s and the first half of the 1900s.

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