THE OLD RUSSIAN CEMETERY

"To the northeast at a cannon shot's distance they have their cemetery, although unfenced. In it there is a noteworthy distinction... [a] mausoleum atop a sepulcher of three square steps, from larger to smaller. Above these was a pyramid two yards high, and over it a ball topped off by a cross, all painted white and black, which is what most attracts one's attention when you descend from the mountain. Over another burial of an individual de razón they placed only something like a box, and over the Kodiaks a cross... All of the crosses we saw are patriarchal; a small cross above and a larger cross nearby like arms, and below, a diagonally placed stick..." Payeras, 1822.

The only outlying facility to survive in some visible form is the old Russian cemetery. It is situated across the ravine on a bluff east of the fort. The several monuments seen in the early photographs no longer exist. A cemetery restoration project conducted in the early 1990s by the University of Wisconsin and the California Department of Parks and Recreation discovered over 150 individual burials in the old Russian cemetery.