The courtly Chamberlain of the Tsar, Nicholas P. Resanof, son-in-law of Shelikof who was the founder of the first Russian colony in America, came to Sitka in 1805, via Petropavlovsk, Siberia, on the “Nadeshda,” one of the first Russian ships to circumnavigate the world, and was a special representative of the Russian American Company, of which organization he was one of the founders.
In his report to the Company he tells us: “The fort is on the high hill, or kekoor, on a peninsula in the gulf. On the left side of the kekoor close on the peninsula is built an immense barracks with two projecting blockhouses or towers. All the building is made from mast timber from the top to the foundation, under which is a cellar. Besides this building are two warehouses, a material magazine and two cellars, also two large sheds for storing food, and under the sheds are the quarters for the workmen. On the side opposite the fort is a shed for storing cargo, at the right side is the kitchen, bath, and quarters for the servants of the Company, clerks, etc., and on the shore are the blacksmith shops and other workshops. On the top of the kekoor is a building five sazhens[[5]] long and three sazhens wide, with two rooms. In one I live, and in the other there are two shipmasters. There are still some old Kolosh yourts, in which live the kayours and the Kodiak Americans (Aleuts, they are generally called).[[6]]
“Our guns are always loaded, everywhere are sentinels with loaded arms, and in the rooms of each of us arms constitute the greater part of the furniture. All the night the signals from post to post continue, war discipline prevails; in a word, we are ready at any minute to receive our dear guests, who generally profit by the darkness of night to make an attack.”
The additional number in the garrison owing to the arrival of the Chamberlain and his suite made it more difficult to procure provisions for the winter. The hostile Kolosh made hunting and fishing dangerous. In the autumn there was but flour enough for an allowance of a pound a week for one month for the 200 men in the fort. For other food supply they were dependent on the fish caught in the bay, the dried yukali and sealion meat from Kodiak, and the dried seal meat from the Seal Islands.
Baranof bought the ship “Juno,” an American sailing ship of about 250 tons, from Captain George D’Wolf, of Bristol, Conn., with its cargo of flour, sugar and other articles, for the sum of 68,000 piastres (Spanish), equivalent to about the same number of dollars. This relieved the immediate necessity, but before spring the supply became so low that the scurvy, that dread malady of the seas and of outlying localities, attacked the garrison. This scourge often fell heavily on the early Russian expeditions, and in 1821 the Russian ship “Borodino” lost 40 men through its ravages in a voyage from Sitka to Kronstadt.
In March, Resanof sailed for San Francisco in the “Juno” to purchase breadstuffs and other supplies. He also wished to examine the coast with the view of making other settlements farther south, at Nootka, at the Columbia, or even farther south in California. He secured a cargo of the products of the south and returned to Sitka in June.
On his southward journey Resanof reconnoitred the mouth of the Columbia River, seeking a site for a future settlement. He was unable to enter the river owing to contrary winds; and the condition of his crew, debilitated by lack of proper food and suffering from scurvy, caused him to hasten on. He heard that a party of U. S. soldiers were building a fort there. This rumor doubtless came from the presence of Lewis and Clarke near the present Astoria.
While on this visit to San Francisco Resanof met the Spanish beauty, Dona Concepcion de Arguello, of whom one of the visitors said, “She was lively and animated, had sparkling, love-inspiring eyes, beautiful teeth, pleasing and expressive features, a fine form and a thousand other charms,” and he lost his heart to her. The romance of the Russian courtier and the fair Californian furnished to Bret Harte the theme for some of his most beautiful verse. Resanof, hurrying home to Russia to gain the Imperial permission to his marriage, died at Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, and Dona Concepcion waited for years for the coming of her lover, not knowing that he lay dead under the Siberian snows. When the news of his sad fate came to her she donned the habit of a nun and devoted herself to charitable works.
This visit to California was the beginning of a trade that continued for many years, through all the period of Russian occupation. During the days of the gold discoveries in California large shipments of goods were made from Sitka to San Francisco, and after the sale of the territory to the United States great quantities of merchandise were shipped from the warehouses of the Company to the California metropolis, amounting to over a quarter of a million dollars in one year.
The breadstuffs for the colonies were procured from California, from San Francisco and from Ross Colony, or from Peru, until 1840, when a contract was made with the Hudson’s Bay Company under which the supplies were brought from the farms of the Nisqually or from Vancouver, in Oregon Territory.