on the cover / By Jerry Rohde

The Sonoma Gang

For its part, Union soon became the foremost town on the bay. It not only offered the shortest shipping route to the inland mines but, when Trinity County was partitioned in 1853, it became the first seat of newly created Humboldt County. Elected as the first County Clerk was a member of the Union Company who’d stayed around — L. K. Wood.

In 1856 Union decided to incorporate. On May Day of that year, the new city received two pieces of important news, one bad, the other dreadful. First, the California Supreme Court ruled that Union’s incorporation required legislative approval, which, however, had not been obtained; Union was therefore merely a town and not a city. Second, the legislature did act on another matter — it had transferred the county seat from Union to Eureka.

Union, twice diminished, had to wait two years, until 1858, before the legislature deigned to grant it cityhood. Then in March, 1860, the legislature noticed the community again. Responding to a petition from citizens of Union, it changed the city’s name to Arcata.

Another name had previously been proposed, by none other than L. K. Wood. When he had first passed down the bay with the Gregg Party in December 1849, Wood noted a Wiyot leader who came from the doomed village of Djorokegochkok. The man’s name was Ki-we-lat-tah, but he was often called “Old Coonskin” for the cap he wore to cover a badly healed head wound. Wood described Ki-we-lat-tah as “an elderly and dignified and very intelligent Indian. He appeared very friendly and seemed disposed to afford us every means of comfort in his power.” The Indian offered the bedraggled explorers “a quantity of clams upon which we feasted sumptuously.” So impressed was Wood that when the opportunity arose, he urged that the Union Company name their newfound town “Ki-we-lat-tah.” Given the attitude of some of the group’s members, it was no wonder that the suggestion was rejected.

But along with his bear-scarred arm, Wood still had a trick or two up his sleeve. When he established a ranch on the western edge of Union/Arcata, he named the place Ki-we-lat-tah. Wood kept track of the elderly Indian and noted in 1856 that the Wiyot leader was still “living on the bay and has always been a quiet and friendly Indian.” In October 1873, a group of ranchers and farmers met at Wood’s ranch to form a chapter of the Patrons of Husbandry. They elected Wood — who would die the next year — the organization’s first Master. They also agreed to the name that was no doubt proposed by their host: the Kiwelata Grange.

It was only a small gesture of respect and gratitude, but after the darkness of the Kelseys and the following darkness of Indian Island, a small shaft of sunlight had at last shone down upon the people — Indian and white — of Humboldt Bay.

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