[OldCorps]

i’ve never heard of early Russian emigration communities in southern Indiana. Can you tell me where these graveyards are located?

[muawiyah]

These weren't "communities". What happened was the Russian company withdrew from America and took certain company personnel with them ~ to wit, the Aleutian Islanders and American Indians they'd hired on.

California was a dreadful place then.

The Western Europeans who'd latched on to the Czar's extension of Russian interests to it's Easternmost holdings simply became Russian Orthodox, went with the company, and ended up in California.

There were men from Southern Indiana and/or Ohio in Califormia trading furs who participated in the trade between the Russians and the Spanish. This eliminated national conflicts.

When the Russians pulled out, a bunch of these guys stayed and later on relocated East with the Americans.

What you find in the pioneer graves of that era (1840s/1850s) are the occasional RUSSIAN CROSS, executed in stone, or iron.

These men "assimilated", and there being no Orthodox priests in the region, and few RC priests, they disappeared into a broad Protestant background ~