Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: Cosmos Mariner
Taken: July 11, 2014
Caption: Relic of the First Russians in America (located inside Visitor Center)
Additional Description: This four pounder bronze naval cannon was cast in St. Petersburg Russia, in 1804. It is one of a pair from the ships of the Imperial Russian Navy and the Russian American Company.

After the ceding of Alaska to the United States, this cannon and its mate turned up in the hands of Captain Gustav Niebaum, a sailing master for the Alaska Trading Company, a San Francisco based commercial firm. Niebaum brought the cannons to California where he founded the Inglenook Winery in the Napa Valley and where the cannons stayed until 1972. An identical cannon had long been in the possession of the United States Navy at Mare Island, California, bearing a brass plate showing that it was a gift from the Russian Imperial Navy to the United States Navy on the occasion of the ceding of Alaska to the United States at Sitka in 1867.

This cannon is on load from the collection of Dimitri Ilyin
Submitted: April 5, 2018, by Cosmos Mariner of Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Database Locator Identification Number: p422010
File Size: 4.985 Megabytes

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