*** Source: Thompson, Robert A., Historical and descriptive sketch of Sonoma County, California. Philadelphia: L.H. Everts & Co., 1877, 122 pgs. Notice: This data is donated to the Public Domain by TAG, 2004, and may be copied freely by anyone to anywhere. *** ---page 9--- So soon as the permanent settlement was known to the authorities of California, news of the event was forwarded to the seat of the supreme government at Madrid. It may well be imagined that a long time was occupied in sending this news and receiving a reply from the viceroy, which was an order com- manding the Russians to depart. The reply of the Northmen to this commu- nication was that the viceroy's orders had been forwarded to St. Petersburg for the Emperor's action. Four years later, in 1816, we find the Russian and Spanish authorities deba- ting the question of occupation, on board a Russian vessel in the waters of San Francisco. Nothing came of the conference. The Russians continued to trap for furs all along the coast, and in all the interior streams of Northern California. They removed their settlement higher up the coast, and built a stockade fort, called Ross; which was singularly well adapted for defence,--it was, in fact, impregnable against any force which the Spanish government could send against it. The fort was a quadrilateral stockade. It contained houses for the director and officers, an arsenal, a barrack for the men, store-houses, and a Greek chapel, surmounted with a cross, and provided with a chime of bells. The stockade was about ten feet high, pierced with embrasures, furnished with carronades; at opposite corners were two bastions, two stories high, and furnished with six pieces of artillery. The gardens were extensive, and the work-shops were sup- plied with all the tools necessary for working in wood and iron. The orchard was large, and some of the trees, now over fifty years old, are still living, and bear fruit. The church above described was the first, not only in Sonoma, but the first north of the bay of San Francisco; so, among other things to the credit of Sonoma county, must be set down the fact that she can boast of the first church north of San Francisco in what is now the State of California. It is almost certain that the Russians did contemplate a permanent occupa- tion and possession of the country north of the bay of San Francisco, as they were greatly in need of a grain-producing country to supply their fur hunters on the bleak and sterile coast of Alaska. The promulgation of the doctrine by President Monroe, in 1823, that the American continents were henceforth not to be considered as subjects for foreign colonization by any European power, was a damper on Russian aspirations in California. Nothing came of the conference in San Francisco, and the Russians remained, continued to trap, and made annual shipments to Sitka of grain raised in and around the fort, and at Bodega, where the town of Bodega now stands. It will be seen from this that Sonoma was also the first wheat-exporting county on the coast of California. An extract from the journal of Captain John Hall, who visited this coast and Bodega in 1822, will show the products of the fat pastures of Sonoma even at that early day. Captain Hall entered the port of Bodega on the 8th of June, and was visited by the Russian governor, who came from Ross. He brought with him, "says Captain Hall," two fine fat sheep, a large tub of butter, and some milk, which was very acceptable after a long voyage, and gave us proof at once of the governor's hospitality, and of the abundance and cheapness of *** end ***