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Fort Ross Cultural HistoryText excerpted from Fort Ross and the Sonoma Coast by Lyn Kalani and Sarah Sweedler. [Arcadia Publications, Images of America series, 168 pages, 200 black & white photographs, $19.95.Available in the Fort Ross Museum Bookstore.] Photographs from the Fort Ross Photo Archives. The Legacy of a Russian Settlement in CaliforniaAmericans are often surprised to learn that Russians once colonized a small stretch of California coastline. Russian settlers established Fort Ross in the early 1800’s, during a time of unprecedented international expansionism. At that time, California was claimed by many but occupied by few. The Spanish had been exploring Alta California since the sixteenth century, and established settlements as far north as the San Francisco Presidio, partially to deflect Russian expansion into the area. Northern California, however, had already been claimed by British explorers, beginning with Sir Francis Drake in 1579. Maps drawn as late as Vancouver’s Atlas of 1801 show English claims that New Albion extended from Canada as far south as San Diego, although they occupied only a fraction of that land. News of the profitable sea otter trade, such as Captain Cook’s report from Nootka Sound in 1778, brought ships—and more claims of entitlement—from all corners of the world. The first American ship to arrive in California was the Otter, which came in 1796 to hunt its namesake. Americans and Europeans were also working their way west across the North American continent. Russia controlled parts of Alaska through a series of settlements administered by the Russian-American Company, a mercantile trading company protected by the tsarist government. The Russians had explored and charted part of the North Pacific during Bering’s scientific expeditions between 1728 and 1742, and the lucrative fur seal and sea otter trade further solidified the Russian presence. Gregorii Shelikov and I. L. Golikov, like many of their fellow eighteenth century Russian merchants, ventured east of the Siberian mainland in pursuit of fur-bearing marine mammals. Recognizing the potential of the fur trade, the Golikov-Shelikov Company saw a larger business opportunity and in 1784 created a permanent settlement on Kodiak Island in what is now Alaska. Their company dominated the fiercely competitive fur trade and eventually, through the efforts of Shelikov’s wife, Natalia, and son-in-law, N. P. Rezanov, became the Russian-American Company. In 1799, Tsar Paul granted the Russian-American Company a broad charter authorizing its monopoly over North America, including exploration, trade, and establishment of new settlements. By the early 1800s Russian settlements extended from the Aleutian Islands to their capital in New Archangel (present day Sitka, Alaska); over its history the Russian-American Company established settlements in the Kurile and Aleutian Islands, Alaska, California, and Hawaii. Recognizing England’s claim of discovery, and defying Spain’s claim of sovereignty over Alta California, the Russian-American Company established Fort Ross in 1812 on an unoccupied stretch of coastal land eighty miles north of San Francisco. The Russians arrived intent on growing food to ship to their Alaskan settlements where the northern climate made farming difficult. For a time their profitable sea otter trade was also expanded, but because Russians, Spanish, English, and Americans all hunted sea otters for their valuable pelts, by the early 1820s the otter population was markedly diminished. (The Russian-American Company established hunting moratoriums on both fur seal and sea otters in the North Pacific, the earliest known efforts at marine conservation.) Ranching and a variety of small industries then fully occupied the colonial population. For almost thirty years Russians inhabited the settlement at Fort Ross. The population included the Native Alaskans, California Native Kashaya, and Coast Miwok. A large part of the population was composed of Creoles, people of mixed Russian and Native ancestry. The legacy left by the Russians is vast. Russian colonists built the first windmills and ships in California. Explorers, scientists, and artists from Imperial Russia visited California and recorded their findings; their pioneering work in the region contributed information that is valuable to the present day. In 1841 the Russians sold the Fort Ross assets to John Sutter; he was not granted title to the land by the Mexican government. Sutter hired a succession of managers to dismantle and transport the remaining Russian possessions to Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento. His last manager, William Benitz, moved his family to Fort Ross in 1846. Shortly thereafter California joined the union. Benitz eventually purchased the land and turned the former Russian fort into a ranch which he operated successfully for over twenty years. Several owners followed Benitz, and during this period the Kashaya Indians who had lived on these lands for centuries were relocated to a reservation some twenty miles north. Then in 1873 George W. Call bought the property and established a ranching enterprise which endured for over one hundred years. During the Call era Fort Ross was a vital social center for the surrounding communities, with an active port, post office, elementary school, hotel, and saloon. From the mid-1800s until the early 1900s, population on the Sonoma North Coast was booming. Portions of the large Mexican land grants were sold. Ranches and mill settlements sprang up overnight, occasionally disappearing as their owners moved on. These settlements brought dog-hole schooners (so named because these ships could turn around in a harbor barely small enough for a dog) to every mill site along the treacherous coastline, used to ship out commodities to San Francisco during the Gold Rush. Towns boasted populations of several hundred, and had the requisite hotel, saloon, general store, blacksmith, school, and post office. But by the early 1900s, the land was logged and the hillsides overgrazed; without commodities to sell, the shipping industry declined. When the coast road connecting Jenner with Gualala was built in 1920, the era of dog-hole schooners was over. In 1903, George W. Call sold the portion of his property which contained the Russian stockade, and in 1906 Fort Ross became a State Historic Park. The Russian fort, as well as the Rotchev House, the one remaining Russian-built structure within the compound, were eventually designated National Historic Landmarks. Almost a century of preservation, restoration, and reconstruction has helped to bring a small portion of the Russian settlement into the twenty-first century, but the six buildings seen in the fort today represent only a sample of the once rich and vibrant life at Settlement Ross. In addition to the fort, California State Parks now stewards some 3,000 acres of dramatic coastal land. Today the park is a focal point, attracting 150,000 visitors each year. Tourism which began in the early days of the Fort Ross and Salt Point hotels continues to flourish. Unfortunately, preservation necessitates sacrifice;
when the coastal bluff became parkland, residents had to move their
community infrastructure northwards and to the ridgeline above Fort
Ross. Locals rebuilt their school and
established a fire department on the nearby ridge, and now drive farther
afield for the post office and other necessities. Much as during the
ranching years, the community includes a vibrant group of residents
living within a twenty-mile area of Fort Ross which extends from Jenner
to Gualala, and inland to Cazadero. Outside of a handful of small towns,
this stretch of the Sonoma North Coast hosts few people. It is wild,
beautiful, and rich in history. Early Exploration & Russian Contributions to Local History With its rocky shoreline and sheer cliffs, the Sonoma coast shows all the signs of a young continent at the leading edge of plate subduction. Fort Ross itself is built upon a large marine terrace, a remarkably flat bluff above vertical coastal cliffs of weathered sandstone and conglomerate rock. For centuries the Kashaya lived upon these lands between the Gualala and Russian Rivers. They moved with the seasons, gathering acorns and hunting game in the coastal hills, then moving to the shoreline where they harvested abalone, mussels, fish, and various sea plants. The Kashaya’s experience would begin to change during the eighteenth century, as numerous European countries explored, charted, and attempted to lay claim to California and the Pacific Northwest. Russian exploring expeditions and Russian-American Company officials were the first to record the Native Californians, as well as the topography and natural curiosities of this area. Amid the international uncertainty of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Russian-American Company decided to settle within California, building a colony to grow agricultural goods to be shipped to their northern outposts. The Russians focused their southward expansion along the Sonoma coast—to the north of the Spanish settlements and within land the British claimed but did not occupy. And with that, the Kashaya encountered their first Europeans.
Fort Ross, A Russian Colony In California The harsh northern climate made self-sufficiency impossible in the Russian-American Company’s Alaskan settlements, and the Company officials decided to establish an agricultural base in California to increase the food supply. Alexander Baranov, manager of the Russian-American Company, directed Ivan Kuskov, his chief deputy, to select a site north of Spanish claims at San Francisco Bay. Kuskov established a base at Bodega Bay on the Sonoma Coast sixty miles north of San Francisco which he named Port Rumiantsev. From there Kuskov explored the surrounding territory, and in 1811 he selected a location for the California settlement on a bluff above a sheltered cove eighteen miles north of Bodega Bay. The site offered soil suitable for farming, as well as access to timber, water, and pasturage. It lacked the deep-water anchorage of Bodega’s outer bay, but its relative inaccessibility from Spanish-occupied territory gave it an advantage in terms of defense. In March of 1812 Kuskov arrived at the site of Fort Ross with twenty-five Russians and eighty Native Alaskans, and immediately began building housing and a wooden stockade. The colony was named Fortress Ross, and was formally dedicated on August 13, 1812. Internationally, 1812 was an eventful year; Spain, France, Russia, and other great colonial powers of the day were preoccupied with a major war, and Great Britain was at war with the United States. With San Francisco Bay marking the northern limit of the Spanish settlement, it was some time before the civil and military leaders of Spanish California became aware of the Russian settlement. The Russians negotiated with the Kashaya for use of the land and quietly started to create a self-sufficient colony along the Sonoma coast.
 Alexander Andreyevich Baranov served the Russia-American Company from 1790 to 1818. Under his leadership as chief manager and governor, Russian influence expanded from the Aleutian Islands to northern California and Hawaii. The southward expansion, and the trade associated with it, was essential to the survival of the Russian settlements in Alaska. This image is an engraving after an oil by Mikhail T. Tikhanov, painted in 1818 just before Baranov’s retirement at the age of seventy-one.
The Fort Ross Settlement 1812 – 1841 Russian Fort Ross was populated by an unusual blend of cultural groups—Russians, the Native Kashaya and Coast Miwok, and Native Alaskans. Much of the population was Creole, people of mixed Russian and Native descent. Everyone in the vicinity of Fort Ross worked for the Russian-American Company. The settlement was headed by a manager who oversaw a broad range of daily activities. The Russian and Creole colonial population included administrative assistants, work supervisors, and artisans such as carpenters, blacksmiths, coopers, and shipwrights. There were many laborers and hunters in the Company service. Before 1820, workers were hired to work on a share-of-the-catch basis; after that time they were paid a salary, signing on for a seven-year term. Salary was paid in Company scrip, out of which they had to buy their clothes and food. Farming, hunting, ranching, and a wide variety of small industries filled the days, including an early example of selling prefabricated houses: “We went with Mr. Shelekhov to view his timber production. In addition to the needs of his own settlement he cuts a great quantity of planks, beams, timbers, and the like, which he sells in California, in the Sandwich Islands, and elsewhere; he even builds entire houses and ships them disassembled. The trees felled are almost all conifers of several kinds and especially the one called palo colorado (redwood).” [Duhaut-Cilly A Voyage to California.] But the colony proved unprofitable even with its diverse activities, and by 1839 officials of the Russian-American Company decided to abandon Ross. The causes were numerous. Sea mammal hunting had not been lucrative for many years. The Russian’s agricultural efforts were foiled by cool coastal weather and an abundance of pests, and in 1839 Russia successfully signed a treaty with England’s Hudson Bay Company to supply Alaska with grain and meat, thus eliminating the necessity for the California settlement. Pressures also existed externally with new settlers flowing into the region. These new residents challenged the Russian claims over territory. In April 1839, the Tsar approved the Company’s plan to liquidate the settlement, and shortly thereafter the Company offered all of its California holdings for sale.
This Coast Miwok woman, Inhabitant of Rumiantsev Bay, was painted by Mikhail Tikhonovich Tikhanov in Bodega Bay in 1818. Many Coast Miwok appear on the records of the inhabitants of Settlement Ross. (Original painting in the Scientific Research Museum, Russian Academy of Fine Arts.)
The inhabitants of Fort Ross did not live in isolation. Russian ships frequently traveled to Spanish ports, and there was extensive trade with Spanish, and later Mexican, California, as well as Britain, the United States, Chile, Europe, and China. Madrid forbade trade and demanded that the Russian colony be removed, but the Spanish colonists were eager to buy Russian goods, and trade between Ross and the Spanish colonists flourished despite the ban. Farm implements and boats were sold and traded to the Spanish for food grown in the Missions, which was shipped by the Russians to Alaska. After Mexican independence in 1821, the Russians provided military goods to the Mexicans.
In 1841 the inventory for Mr. Sutter lists buildings outside the fort: “twenty-four planked dwellings with glazed windows, a floor and a ceiling; each had a garden. There were eight sheds, eight bath houses and ten kitchens.” Outside the stockade were two windmills, cattle yards, bakery, threshing floor, cemetery, farm buildings, bath houses, vegetable gardens, and an orchard. At Sandy Beach Cove there was a forge and blacksmith shop, tannery, cooperage, public bath, and a boat shop and shipways for building ships. The painting shows the first Russian Orthodox chapel in North America outside of Alaska, which was built in the mid-1820s. The settlement had no resident priest, but in 1836 Father Ioann Veniaminov visited Fort Ross and conducted marriages, baptisms, and other religious services. Voznesenskii’s drawing also shows California’s earliest windmill. By 1841 Fort Ross had two windmills, the first to be built in California. Although agriculture was the cornerstone of Fort Ross’ establishment, production never met expectations. In an attempt to intensify production, the Company eventually established three farms at inland sites between Fort Ross and Port Rumiantsev ( Bodega Bay). Settlement Ross, 1841, is portrayed by Russian naturalist and artist Ilya Gavrilovich Voznesenskii. (Courtesy of Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Science, Kunstkamera, St. Petersburg, Russia.) Naturalist and artist Ilya Voznesenskii was sent by the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences to explore and investigate Russian America. In 1840 he spent a year in California collecting specimens of flora, fauna, and Native Californian artifacts. Many of these objects are the sole surviving items of their kind, and Voznesenskii is seen as Russian America’s greatest collector. His invaluable ethnographic collection is now on display in the Peter the Great Kunstkamera Museum in St. Petersburg Russia. Four Russian-American Company ships—three brigs and a schooner—were the first ships built on the California coast. Built between 1817 and 1825, these vessels were seaworthy for approximately five years in the harsh conditions of the North Pacific. Finding California hardwoods unsuitable for ship building, the Company abandoned shipbuilding at Ross by 1825, but did continue building smaller boats. The Buldakov, built at Fort Ross, is pictured in this detail from Unfinished Watercolor of Novo-Arkhangel’sk ( Sitka) Harbor by Pavel Mikhailov, 1827. At the time this picture was painted, the Buldakov was serving as a storehouse in the Alaskan harbor. Courtesy of State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg. Fort Ross’ main port was eighteen miles to the south at Port Rumiantsev ( Bodega Bay) where there was a deep-water anchorage and wharf. Ships from various countries stopped at the port to trade with the Russians. In addition to a storehouse and housing, there was a permanently-stationed twenty-five ton “copper-covered smallboat, well suited for navigating all along the coast of California.” The goods were then transported from Port Rumiantsev to Fort Ross’ Sandy Beach Cove using Russian launches, Native Alaskan baidarkas (kayaks), and baidaras (large, open skin boats which carry cargo and up to fifteen passengers). In 1836 Baron Ferdinand Petrovich von Wrangell, manager-in-chief of the Russian-American Company, made a final effort to avert Russian withdrawal from Fort Ross by traveling to Mexico City to seek an improvement in relations with the Mexican Republic. He sought Mexico’s formal recognition of the legality of Russia’s claim to Fort Ross. The Mexicans were willing to yield on this issue, but only in return for Russia’s diplomatic recognition of their own national independence as a republic. Tsar Nicholas I rejected the condition. Alexander Rotchev was the last manager at Fort Ross. He was an intelligent and well-traveled person, accomplished in the arts and conversant in several languages; his wife was a member of Russia’s titled nobility. Their home, shared with their children, was constructed circa 1836, and is the only remaining Russian-built structure at Fort Ross. A French visitor remarked that the Rotchev’s possessed a “choice library, a piano, and a score of Mozart.” By 1841, Rotchev was ordered to sell the settlement. He approached both the Mexican government and the Hudson’s Bay Company, but neither party wanted to purchase the fort. In 1841, he successfully negotiated the sale to John Sutter of New Helvetia, in what is now Sacramento. John Sutter agreed to pay the Russian-American Company the equivalent of thirty thousand dollars in installments of wheat over a three-year period for the livestock, equipment, and armaments at Fort Ross, which he then moved to his own settlement. The sale did not include the land. From Russians to Ranchers, 1840s through the 1870s In September of 1841, John Augustus Sutter signed an agreement with the Russian-American Company to purchase the assets of Fort Ross. Sutter made the purchase on credit and proceeded to move everything that could be moved to his land near current-day Sacramento. Sutter never lived at Fort Ross, but hired a succession of managers to oversee its dismantling. One such manager was John Bidwell: “ . . . Sutter bought them out – cattle and horses; a little vessel of about twenty-five tons burden, called a launch; and other property, including forty odd pieces of old rusty cannon and one or two small brass pieces . . . This ordnance Sutter conveyed up the Sacramento River on the launch to his colony.”The Mexican authorities officially rejected Sutter’s claim of land ownership, instead dividing it into two holdings: the Bodega Rancho, between Bodega Bay and the Russian River, granted to Captain Stephen Smith, and the Muniz Rancho, between the Russian River and Timber Cove, awarded to Manuel Torres, whose sister was married to Captain Smith. The last manager under Sutter was William Benitz, who eventually leased the land from Sutter. Benitz later purchased the Muniz Rancho, including Fort Ross. He successfully planted a broad range of crops, and raised cattle, sheep, and horses, creating a self-contained agricultural empire which brought stability to the coast. (Photographs of Benitz Era)
The Russians planted an orchard on the hillside north of the fort, and by 1841 there were 260 fruit trees—apples, peaches, pears, quince, cherries. Benitz expanded the orchard by planting another 1,700 trees.
Benitz constructed a stone wharf from which to ship out his goods. Coastal schooners such as Benitz’s traded up and down the coast, loading and unloading lumber, piling, and building stone quarried from the Salt Point area. Benitz and his neighbors sold potatoes, grain, deer hides, eggs, butter, apples, live ducks, and pigeons—all desirable commodities in Sonoma and San Francisco. According to the tax collector, Benitz was rated the fourth richest man in Sonoma County in 1858. Fort Ross Cove, circa 1875. In 1848, 162 Kashaya still lived outside the fort. The Kashaya were employed by Benitz and his partner, taking on the farming and ranching chores inherent in such a large agricultural empire. As decreed by the federal government, Kashaya workers received board, lodging, and an $8 a month salary. Dixon did not need a labor force for agriculture and instructed the Kashaya to leave Fort Ross. In the early 1870s, many Kashaya moved permanently up to their traditional winter home in the oak grasslands northeast of Fort Ross. Charles Haupt, a rancher who had married a Kashaya woman named Molly, invited her people to live again at their old village, which was now on his ranch. Benitz left Fort Ross in 1867, selling off his land in two large parcels. The northern half, including the fort, was sold to James Dixon, a sawmill operator in Marin County. The southern portion went to Charles Snowden Fairfax. Neither Dixon nor Fairfax intended to live on the land. They purchased the property intent on recouping their investment through lumber sales, and held the parcels only long enough to harvest the most accessible timber.
Fort Ross
as a Shipping Center “Old Fort Ross as Seen from the Hill” is pictured in Thompson and West’s Atlas of Sonoma County, 1877.
By his mid-thirties, George W. Call had accumulated substantial wealth and had traveled widely. He returned to California keen on finding land where he might ranch and raise his family. In 1873 Call purchased 2,500 acres of Dixon’s northern parcel, including Fort Ross and its loading chute, for $35,000. He also paid $10,000 for livestock. Call settled at Fort Ross with his Chilean wife Mercedes Leiva Call and three young children; over the years nine children would be raised at the fort. Call continued to purchase land until he owned approximately 8,000 acres. He built barns, wagon sheds, a smithy. Within a decade Call transformed Fort Ross into one of the most active small shipping, communications, and business centers along the northern California coast. (Photographs of Call Era) Fort Ross also became a tourist destination. Some would come to explore the old Russian colony, while others were drawn to the dramatic shoreline and inland forests. Until the 1920s when automobiles became popular, the sea was the primary access to Fort Ross. Call expanded upon the transport of goods by sea begun by all the previous owners. He constructed a wharf and warehouse near the Dixon lumber chute, to export not only Fort Ross produce and timber but also that of neighboring farms and ranches. In 1897, Call put his own gasoline schooner, La Chilena, into weekly service to San Francisco. The weekly Schooner Day was a festive and busy occasion in the neighborhood, and the Call family was renowned for its hospitality. When the Pomona wrecked just offshore of Fort Ross, Mercedes Call fed and cared for a great many of the passengers in the aftermath. The Call era brought stability to a large stretch of the coast that would last for one hundred years.
After the Calls built their family home outside the fort walls, Call leased out the Rotchev House as a hotel, as pictured here in 1880. The old Russian buildings housed a dance hall and a saloon as well; eventually there was a store, a post office, and a telegraph station. Fort Ross became a social center for residents of the area.
The Pomona, a coastal steamer that regularly traveled from San Francisco to Eureka, struck a submerged rock about two miles south of Fort Ross cove and was wrecked at Fort Ross in 1908. (Viewing the Pomona, below, is courtesy of the Stafford Collection.)
G. W. Call hired fourteen Chinese laborers and an Irish foreman to build a new road south along the cliffs from Fort Ross to Meyers Grade, and to widen the road north of the fort to Kolmer Gulch. . . The road was closed by landslides a decade later, and did not reopen until the early 1920s, when the mode of transportation began to change, even in this remote area. The Surrounding Communities, Jenner to The Sea Ranch Fort Ross was the first European settlement along the Sonoma North Coast, but by the middle of the nineteenth century the old Russian colony had many neighbors. In the 1880s the Sonoma coast could be described as having a sawmill in every gulch and a chute at every marginally-hospitable coastal indentation.(Photographs of American Ranch Era) Over time many of these sites developed into small towns, providing amenities such as general stores, hotels, possibly a stage stop. From the Gualala River to the mouth of the Russian River, the coast is populated by small unincorporated towns where locals once felled timber, stripped tanbark, quarried sandstone, or grazed cattle and sheep. Although logging and quarrying enterprises no longer dominate the landscape, some of the towns remain, often bearing the names of the men who first established commerce along this rugged coastline. By the early 1900s the lumber industry and coastal shipping were in decline, the land was overgrazed, and people moved away from the area. During Prohibition, locals turned to smuggling liquor via the sea. Black Point and Del Mar Landing in the old German Rancho known as Rancho Del Mar—The Sea Ranch—became well-known spots for this enterprise. In the 1920s the road along the coast between Jenner and Gualala was built, and coastal shipping was replaced by automobiles and trucks. Slowly, tourism became important, as the coast attracted urban visitors who came to fish, hunt, and enjoy the beaches in this wild and pristine environment. Assembling a Park In July of 1903 George W. Call sold a portion of his property to the California Historical Landmarks League. This sale included the fort compound, which was turned over to the State of California in March of 1906. Fort Ross became one of California’s first historic state parks and began its slow and iterative process of restoration. Time and weather had damaged the Russian structures long before Fort Ross was designated a historic park. Even before the Russians left in 1834, the governor of Russian America, Baron von Wrangell, commented on the neglected state of the structures: [they] “are neatly and orderly maintained and look comfortable, even handsome. However, almost all the buildings, as well as the stockade wall and watch-towers, are so old and dilapidated that either they need repairing or else they should be replaced by new structures.” Although there was some rebuilding during the last decade of Russian occupation, during the following American ranch period, many of the buildings, even the Chapel, were further deteriorated by their use as agricultural outbuildings—they housed farm animals and stored crops. The ranchers modified the buildings, and although these changes often made the structures stronger, they obscured many Russian construction details. When the State acquired the fort in 1906, the Russian blockhouses and some of the stockade were still standing, as were the Chapel, Officials’ Quarters (Saloon), Rotchev House ( Fort Ross Hotel) and the two adjoining Russian warehouses. More damage ensued during the 1906 earthquake, which took place less than a month after Fort Ross became a state park. Restoration began a decade later with the 1916 Chapel reconstruction, carrying out what has now been almost a century of rebuilding Fort Ross. Today the Rotchev House is the only remaining original Russian-built structure; the five other buildings in the fort compound are reconstructions.
Miss Rosa Call is standing by the earthquake surface ruptures on the San Andreas Fault after the 1906 earthquake. The San Andreas fault line runs along the base of the Fort Ross hills. Fissures almost a meter across were observed after the ‘06 quake.
During the 1906 earthquake, the Chapel walls caved in, and the floors and foundation were reduced to rubble. Fortunately, the roof fell to the ground intact. The propped-up fence at the left is the only remaining portion of the original Russian stockade.
The Russian Warehouse, Officials’ Quarters (left), and the Rotchevs’ home (which had become the two-story Fort Ross Hotel) had all been modified extensively throughout the ranch era, and remained standing after the earthquake. The Officials’ Quarters and Rotchev House with the Benitz additions are pictured circa 1916. The Officials’ Quarters . . . was one of the longest-surviving original Russian buildings; unfortunately it was demolished when its timbers were used to reconstruct the Chapel in 1916 . . .
In 1955, a second Chapel restoration was funded to restore the structure to the original Russian three-window configuration. From 1948 through the 1960s John McKenzie, State Park Curator, initiated restoration of the old Russian buildings and painstakingly recorded the original Russian structural elements.
The Chapel received a new roof in 1956. Here the original Russian rafters are unveiled to show that the original Fort Ross Chapel roof had an onion-shaped dome similar to chapels in Russian-Alaska and Russia, although its current construction does not reflect this.
Highway One still divided the stockade on October 5, 1970, when the restored Russian Chapel was destroyed in an accidental fire that swept through the building, leaving nothing but a few charred timbers. Supporters of Fort Ross organized the third rebuilding of the Chapel with funds obtained from local residents, Russian American groups, and government agencies. This 1973 reconstruction still stands today. The bell that now hangs outside the Chapel was recast using materials from the original bell.
In 1971, a few months after the Chapel burned to the ground, an arson fire burned the roof of the Rotchev House. At that time the building was being used as the Fort Ross Museum, and many artifacts stored in the attic were damaged or lost. A hipped roof was constructed from new materials, and the Rotchev House was reopened to the public in 1974. The damage to the Fort Ross buildings in the 1970s initiated an era of reconstruction which produced the fort seen today. The Kuskov House was reconstructed in 1983. This building must have been one of the first Russian buildings to be lost, as there are no pictures or reports of it during the ranching years. It served as headquarters for Ivan Kuskov, the first administrator of Fort Ross. In 1832 an (anonymous) Bostonian describes it as follows: “The first room we entered was the armory, containing many muskets, ranged in neat order; hence we passed into the chief room of the house, which is used as a dining room & in which all business is transacted. It was comfortably, though not elegantly furnished, and the walls were adorned with engravings of Nicholas I, Duke Constantine . . .” Fort Ross By the end of the twentieth century Fort Ross State Historic Park had been expanded to 3,200 acres, including some of the most pristine and dramatic coastline in California. Although the original Russian stockade became a California State Park in 1906, it was not until 1962 and 1976 that the state purchased additional acreage, the old Russian orchard, the Call dairy on the hillside, and the coastal terraces surrounding the stockade. In 1990 the state, in conjunction with the Save-The-Redwoods League, acquired another 2,157 acres, including old-growth redwoods, open meadows, oak woodlands, and Kolmer Gulch Beach. The park now reaches as far as Seaview Road at the top of the ridge, and for a mile in each direction from the fort along the coast. Much of this land was the original Call Ranch property which had been sold to logging interests. Tourism which began in the Fort Ross Hotel days has expanded to a yearly total of some 150,000 visitors coming from all over the country and beyond. Jenner to Gualala The Sonoma coast is home to a diverse group of people that come here for many reasons. Ranchers, farmers, retirees, artisans, craftsmen, and professionals all settle here. Once settled, most stay. These Sonoma coast residents have much in common with the ranch-era settlers that came before. They tend to be hardy, independent, and deeply proprietary of the land. Not unlike when the coast road was first proposed, locals are still concerned that the outside world “will be in on us” and spoil our secret. Over the last fifty years several large ranches have been subdivided, and houses now dot the hills on Muniz Ranch and Timber Cove. Farther north, The Sea Ranch, a private planned community designed with an eye towards environmental sensitivity, now extends for ten miles along the northern edge of the Sonoma Coast. Although weekend visitation has increased, vast stretches of the coast are remarkably unchanged from centuries past. Maybe it’s the severe winter weather—and the periodic power outages and road closures the weather causes—that keeps the population down. Whatever the cause, the coast, a mere seventy-five miles north of the bustling Bay Area, is still a quiet and peaceful place. State and county parks have acquired vast holdings along the coast, helping to ensure that the landscape will remain pristine. Several of the ranch-era townships are now parkland, and yet this preservation has been at the expense of the community centers which thrived in the past. But today’s residents and tourists can now enjoy phenomenal public lands up and down the wild Sonoma Coast, with access to hiking, whale watching, and a wide variety of recreational activities. |
History of the Russian American Company Flag Archaeological Projects at Fort Ross Chapters: Native Californians at Fort Ross
Websites related to the Native Kashaya: |
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The Nadezhda, commanded
by Captain Johann von Krusenstern, led Russia’s first scientific
circumnavigation (1803-1806). Expeditions such as these allowed explorers,
scientists, recorders, and artists from Imperial Russia to contribute
a legacy of information invaluable to the study of early California.
They furthered the 1785 orders of Catherine the Great to undertake
expeditions of scientific exploration “of the seas lying between
the continent of Siberia and the opposite coast of America . . . to
draw remarkable views of coasts . . . You are to enquire . . . about
the . . . inhabitants of unknown places. . . Lastly, you are to procure
or . . . to get painted, or describe . . . such nations.” (Original
engraving of the Nadezhda in the Atlas of I. A. Krusenstern,
1814.) Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov participated in the voyage of the Nadezhda as
an ambassador to Japan and director of the Russian-American Company.
While in Japan he separated from the expedition, then traveled to inspect
the Russian American colonies in Alaska, where he witnessed a “disastrous
situation” of famine and suffering brought on by the cold climate
and belated arrival of supply ships. Rezanov then organized a voyage
to California. The trip resulted in his recommendation that the Russian-American
Company establish a settlement in California’s more hospitable
climate to provide Alaska with agricultural products. 
In
1816 Captain Otto von Kotzebue’s voyage around the world on the
Russian brig Rurik brought the naturalist Adelbert von Chamisso,
the artist Louis Andreyevich Choris, and the entomologist-zoologist
Johann Friedrich Eschscholtz to California, all of whom made lasting
contributions to the study of early California. Russian scientists
recorded and named many California plants and animals, including bull
kelp (Nereocystis lutkeana), the yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus
vosnesenskii), and the Monterey salamander (Ensatina eschscholtzi
eschscholtzi). During his stay in the San Francisco area in 1820,
Chamisso collected and named the California poppy E schscholtzia
californica, after his colleague Johann Eschscholtz. The poppy
is now California’s state flower. (Original in New York Botanical
Garden, The LuEsther T. Mertz Library.)
In
1818, Vasily Nikolaevich Golovnin, Russian Naval Captain of the Kamchatka, visited
northern California, stopping at Fort Ross and Bodega Bay. His memoirs
describe the warm welcome given him by the Miwok chiefs at Bodega Bay.
Golovnin describes meeting Chief Valenila, who “wanted more Russians
to settle among them in order to protect them from Spanish oppression.
He begged me for a Russian flag, explaining that he wanted to raise
it as a sign of friendship and peace whenever Russian ships should
appear near the shore.” Golovnin drew this map of Rumiantsev
Bay ( Bodega Bay) during his inspection of the colony in 1818. 
Chartered
by the Russian government in 1799, the Russian-American Company was
Russia’s first commercial trading company protected by the crown,
with a mandate to control all Russian exploration, trade, and settlement
in North America. After 1800 the company’s main office moved
from Siberia to St. Petersburg. Shareholders included high officials,
court nobility, and members of the Tsar’s family. The Emperor
granted the Russian-American Company its own flag in 1806. 
Highly
skilled 
By
1817 the colonists had constructed a Russian-style fort out of California
redwood which consisted of a stockade, blockhouses, and log buildings.
This detail (the earliest known painting of Fort Ross) is from the Plan
of Fortress Ross (1817), a map of the settlement which was sent
to Madrid when the Spanish government demanded information from St.
Petersburg about the settlement. The Russians also sent a document
asserting their legal right to occupy the land based on their agreement
with the Native population. (Original map in the State Naval Archive,
St. Petersburg, Russia.)
This
chart, Section of the Coast of Northwest America from Fortress
Ross to Point Great Bodega 1817, lists (from top to bottom) Point
Northwest, Fortress Ross, Point Northwest West, Baidarka Refuge Harbor
(Russian Gulch), Slavianka Gate Island (Russian River), Point Slavianka,
Sea Gull Island, Point Rumiantsev, Rumiantsev Bay (Bodega Bay), and
Great Bodega Point. Ivan M. Kislakovskii, the cartographer of this
chart, was navigator on Captain Leontii Hagemeister’s ship Kutuzov. It
was on this trip that Kuskov, Hagemeister, Kislakovskii and others
conducted the treaty with the Kashaya who leased the land of Fort Ross
to the Russian-American Company. This was the only such agreement conducted
between Europeans and Native Californians. (Courtesy of State Naval
Archives, St. Petersburg, Russia.)
In
1832 an anonymous Bostonian who visited Ross describes the stockade
and manager’s residence: “The Presidio is formed by the
houses fronting inwards, making a large square, surrounded by a high
fence. The Governor’s house stands at the head, and the remainder
of the square is formed by the chapel, magazin, and dwelling houses.
The buildings are from 15 to 20 feet high, built of large timbers,
and have a weather-beaten appearance.” Only the higher-ranking
Russian officials and visitors lived inside; most of the Russian and
Creole Company employees lived in the village complex of houses and
gardens west of the stockade walls. The Native Alaskan workforce and
their families, often including Kashaya and Coast Miwok women, lived
in another village south of the stockade wall on the marine terrace.
This is View of Fort Ross, 1828, by A.B. Duhaut-Cilly.
William
Benitz married seventeen-year-old Josephine Kolmer shortly after she
arrived with her family in Sonoma in 1845 as part of the John Grigsby/William
B. Ide wagon train. Benitz gave the Kolmer family land at Timber Cove,
which their descendants kept for 100 years; Kolmer Gulch is named for
them. Josephine bore ten children while living at Fort Ross; seven
survived to adulthood. This is Fort Ross circa 1866 as the Benitz family
ranch. (Courtesy of Benitz family.) In early 1846 Josephine and William
moved into the Rotchev House. As the family grew, Benitz expanded the
Rotchev House and built the two-story addition which stood until 1926.
When
his family outgrew the Rotchev house, Call began work on a new residence
outside the fort compound facing the northwest cove. It was the Call
family home for a century. After G. W. Call died in 1907, his sons
Carlos and George H. managed the ranch. Mercedes Leiva lived in the
house for another twenty years, and Carlos and his sister Emma lived
there into their nineties. Now part of the State Park, the Call House
has undergone restoration and is open for visitors. The Call family
is gathered on the front porch, circa 1900.
The
Fort Ross port and landing chute in the northwest cove (pictured here
before 1900) was used extensively by ranchers from the surrounding
community. Neighboring farms and ranches hauled wood products as well
as butter, hogs, apples, and hides to Fort Ross by four- and six-horse
wagon teams over the narrow, winding, and precipitous dirt roads. In
1897, Call put his own gasoline schooner, La Chilena, into
weekly service to San Francisco.
The
foundation and walls were rebuilt, and the original roof was returned
to its position. Although Carlos Call and his local carpenters increased
the building’s structural integrity, the Chapel’s original
appearance was altered during the remodel. This shows the fully restored
Fort Ross Chapel in 1917. To replace the building’s broken supports,
original Russian-cut timbers and planks were taken from the Officials’ Quarters.
Carpenters decided to add an extra wall stud to compensate for damage
sustained by the ceiling joists and roof beams, which increased the
number of windows from three to four. The alterations produced by the
1916 reconstruction remained for nearly forty years. 
The
Rotchev House was built circa 1836 for Alexander Rotchev, the last
administrator of Settlement Ross. It is the only surviving structure
which contains construction techniques dating back to the Russian era.
. . . After the Russians departed, Benitz took up residence in the
building and enlarged the house by constructing a two-story addition
and front porch. The house continued to be used as a residence by successive
landowners, and eventually became the Fort Ross Hotel. By the early
twentieth century, the building was beginning to fall into ruin. It
is shown here after 1916 and prior to the removal of the two-story
addition.
Beginning
in 1925, steps were taken to restore the Rotchev House to its original
Russian appearance. It received a new foundation and a new shingled
and gabled roof. The kitchen and two-storied addition were removed
in 1926, but the ranch-era front porch is still present. The Rotchev
House stands ready for new foundation and roof in 1942, but work was
put on hold until after World War II. Repairs and modifications were
completed after the war. The front porch was removed in 1945, a Russian-style
hipped roof replaced the gabled roof in 1948, and new windows and concrete
piers were added shortly thereafter. Restoration of the Rotchev House
was completed in 1948.