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Updated: May 29, 2025
Baranof landed a force and occupied the kekoor, planted cannon on the top, then opened negotiations for the surrender of the other fort, but his overtures were rejected by the Indians. The ships were brought near the river fort and the cannon were trained on it.
At the top of the kekoor, or the Baranof Hill as it was called in recent years, there stood a building occupied during Russian days as a residence by the chief managers of the Russian American Company. The one known to the residents and visitors of the earlier days of the American occupation was known as the Baranof Castle, although Baranof himself never lived in it.
The Indian village of Sitka was almost in the same place as the present town, grouped around the Baranof hill which was called by the Russians a kekoor. On the top of the kekoor was a redoubt, and a stronger fort was near the mouth of the Indian River, or Kolosh Ryeku.
Lady Franklin, the widow of the famous Arctic explorer, was once a guest at the mansion on the kekoor, and Secretary Seward was entertained there in 1869 when he visited the land he added to the possessions of the United States.
In 1827 there had been built, three sentry houses, a battery of thirty guns on the kekoor, and below them magazines, barracks and other buildings, a bakery, wharf, arsenal, etc. In the shops were blacksmiths, coppersmiths, locksmiths, coopers, turners, rope spinners, chandlers, painters, masons, etc.
The historic building was the scene of many interesting events, and sheltered many distinguished persons. The first mistress who presided over the mansion on the kekoor was Madame Yanovski, a daughter of Baranof and the wife of Lieutenant Yanovski, the third chief manager of the Russian American Company.
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.
On the top of the kekoor is a building five sazhens long and three sazhens wide, with two rooms. In one I live, and in the other there are two shipmasters. "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.
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.
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