During the latter part of August, 1812, the ship “Neva” left Okhotsk–contrary winds delayed her in the Sea of Okhotsk–storms beat her back along the Aleutian Islands till it was November before land was sighted in Alaska. The storms damaged the rigging and ship until it was necessary to put into Voskresenski Harbor (Resurrection Bay) for repairs. She arrived off Sitka about December 1st. After four or five days Mt. Edgecumbe was sighted but a storm drove the ship to sea where she beat about for weeks before again nearing the port. Scurvy afflicted the passengers and crew and added to the general distress. On January 8th, 1813, Mt. Edgecumbe again appeared. In trying to make the harbor the ship grounded on the rocks under the cape on the morning of the 9th and speedily broke to pieces under the terrific pounding of the seas.[[8]] Some of the people on board reached shore after incredible suffering and hardship.
After several days two of the sailors wandering along the shore met a Kolosh boy and persuaded him to take them to Sitka, where they arrived, cold, exhausted, and almost starving. Boats were at once fitted out by Mr. Baranof, the survivors were rescued, brought to Sitka, and their sufferings relieved. From those on board the ship, 38 had perished, including Kalinin, the commander, Boronovolokof, the intended future chief manager of the Company, and five women passengers. In the cargo was food and clothing, the messages of the year for the exiles, and rich vestments and furnishings for the church that was soon to be built in Sitka, all scattered for miles along the wild coast of Kruzof Island. This was one of the worst disasters of the sea that visited the colony, although many others are part of the records of the time.
It is said that Chief Katlean tore his hair with rage when he learned of the wreck, because he did not find it and destroy the survivors out of revenge for his defeat and expulsion from his home at Sitka.
There are many traditions among the residents of Sitka concerning the wreck of the “Neva.” Among them is that there was a vast treasure of gold for the use of the garrison and the traders. This is erroneous, for there was no gold used in the colonies, the trade being by barter or conducted with scrip, called assignats, issued by the Company for the purpose. The story of the gold has been so generally believed that serious plans have been made for attempting the salvage of the treasure.
The term of office of Alexander Andreevich Baranof as the chief manager of the Russian American Company came to a close in 1818. He had been 28 years in the colonies, leaving Russia in 1790 for the post of Three Saints on Kodiak Island, which at that time constituted almost the only Russian establishment in America, the other stations being little more than outlying trading posts. He left their dominion an empire in extent, reaching from the Seal Islands in Bering Sea, at the edge of the ice pack of the Arctic, to Fort Ross, among the sunny hills of Golden California. Captain Hagmeister came to relieve him, and in his 72nd year the old chief manager, bent with the weight of years and of long and arduous service, closed his accounts and set sail on the “Kutusof,” one of the Company’s vessels, for his far-off home in Russia.
When the time arrived for Baranof to take his departure from the land he had made his home for so many years, sorrowfully he took his leave of the associates with whom he had so long shared the dangers and hardships of the uncivilized land. Upon being relieved of the duties of his office he first considered building a home at the Ozerskoe Redoubt and spending the remainder of his days in the place he had learned to love. Later he decided to return to his native land and sailed on the “Kutusof” for Kronstadt. A delay at Batavia in the tropics proved too severe for his advanced years. The day after leaving Batavia he died and was buried at sea in the waters of the Indian Ocean.
Captain Leontius Andreanovich Hagemeister succeeded to the office of chief manager but remained only a short time at Sitka, then sailed for Russia, leaving Captain Simeon Ivanovich Yanovski in charge.
Captain Yanovski became enamored with the beautiful daughter of Baranof, and if you search the old records of the Cathedral of St. Michaels at Sitka you will find the entry as made of the marriage of Simeon Ivanof Yanovski “with the late head governor of the Russian American possessions, Collegiate Adviser and Cavalier Baranof’s daughter Irina, one of Creoles.”
In 1830, Baron Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangell, scientist and explorer, came to administer the office. He had sailed the frozen ocean along the northern shores of Siberia as an explorer, and Wrangell Island, Wrangell Strait, etc., on the maps of today perpetuate his name.
Under Baron Wrangell, as assistant to the manager, served Adolph Carlovich Etolin, a native of Finland, who came to the colony as an officer on the war sloop “Kamchatka” in 1817, who sailed in the service of the Company to nearly every port from the Seal Islands of Bering Sea to Chile, who made several voyages around the world, and who was made chief manager in 1840. In 1846 he returned to Russia to accept the trust of Commercial Counsellor in the head office of the Company in St. Petersburg.