BARANOFF, Alexander Andreevich, Russian explorer and merchant: b. Kargopol 1747; d. 16 April 1819. A merchant and manufac turer in Irkutsk, Siberia, in 1780, he became manager of the colony previously founded on Three Saints Bay, Kodiak Island, Alaska, in 1791, but soon afterward taking charge he transferred the trading post to Saint Paul's Harbor, Kodiak Island, and established posts in Cook Inlet and in Prince William Sound. At Vosressensky Harbor, now Resurrection Bay, in 1794, he built the first ship constructed north of Vancouver Island on the northwest coast of America. In 1796 he placed a colony at Yakutat Bay. Upon the organization of the Russian American Company, in 1799, he was made chief manager, and his jurisdiction in cluded all of Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and the Kurile Islands. In this year he established a post at Old Sitka, on the west side of Bara nof Island, which was destroyed by the In dians in 1802. In 1804 he drove the Indians from the site of the present town of Sitka, built a fortified post and named it New Arch angel, to which he transferred the headquar ters of the company. During Baranov's ad
ministration of the affairs of the company it maintained trading posts only along the south ern part of Alaska, from Sitka to Unalaska, including the Chugatch Gulf (Prince William Sound), and the Gulf of Kenai (Cook Inlet). They traded as far north as the Bristol Bay region and took seals on the Pribylof Islands, but had no settlements north of those places. In 1812 he placed a fort at Ross, near Bodega Bay, California, and also maintained a station on the Farallon Islands for several years. He extended the commerce of the company to the Spanish settlements in California, to the Sand wich (Hawaiian) Islands and to China. His administration of the affairs of the company dosed in 1818, and in November of that year sailed for Russia by way of the Cape of Good Hope. The ship was detained at Ba tavia, Java, where Baranoff fell ill of a fever, and a few days after leaving that port he died and was buried in the Straits of Sunda.