Captain Lisianski then took command and moved his ships nearer the shore. A canoe with reinforcements and a supply of powder for the Indians approached among the islands but a shot from the “Neva” struck it, the powder exploded, and the Indians who were saved from the wreck were taken on board the Russian ship. The bombardment was steadily continued until the 6th of October, when the Kolosh proposed to surrender, and a parley was held, but during the night they evacuated the fort and went over the mountains to the north. In the fort were left the bodies of 30 warriors and also the bodies of five children who had been killed to prevent their cries making the retreat known to the Russians. The only remaining survivors were two old women and a little boy. A few straggling warriors remained lurking about, seeking revenge, and a few days later they killed eight Aleuts who were fishing on Jamestown Bay.
How the Kolosh went over the mountains was long a mystery to the Russians. They reached the shore of Peril Strait and crossing to the north shore placed a fort near the entrance to Sitkoh Bay which was stronger than their old fort at Indian River and where over 1,000 people gathered. A tradition among the old Indians says that the fugitives first went to Old Sitka, then over the mountains to the northeastern side of the island. On the way they suffered extremely from fatigue and hunger, and one Sitka Indian who lives on Peril Strait relates that his father was a child at the time of the exodus. His father carried him till exhausted, when he abandoned him, and his mother then took him up and carried him the remainder of the way.
The property left in the fort by the Kolosh was taken out, the fortification was burned and the canoes on the beach were broken to pieces. There was enough remaining of the structure that some of the remains of the foundation may yet be seen in the forest which has sprung up around it in the Indian River Park, although more than a century has since elapsed.
Sitka in 1805–From Lisianski’s Voyage.
Then began the restoration of the post, on the present site of Sitka, and with energy and despatch the building of a new Russian settlement proceeded. Around the kekoor the native houses were removed, and along with them more than a hundred burial houses with the ashes of the bodies which had been burned. The great tribal houses, or barabaras, as they are called in the Russian accounts, were spacious, some measuring 50 feet in width and 80 feet in length.[[2]] In their place rose the town of New Archangel (Novo Arkangelsk,) and on the kekoor was built a redoubt. This was the official name and generally recognized by the Russians, but the name Sitka was early used by them. Baranof frequently used the term Sitka in his letters, and in the letter of the Minister of Finance to the Minister of Marine, from St. Petersburg, April 9, 1820, Sitka is used in several places. The name Sitka, or Sheetkah, in the Thlingit language, means, in this place, that this is the place, or the best place, implying superiority over all other places.
All winter there was cutting of logs in the forest and by the spring of 1805 there were eight substantial buildings, the space for 15 kitchen gardens had been cleared, the livestock brought on the ships were thriving, and an air of prosperity pervaded the place.[[3]] Surveys of the harbor were made by Captain Lisianski who also made the first ascent of Mt. Edgecumbe, and who then sailed for Kronstadt, Russia, by the way of Canton, with a cargo of furs for the China trade valued at 450,000 rubles.[[4]]