During the second week in September of 2018 eight volunteers
and three archaeologists finished building the Gibsonville Cemetery. The
Gibsonville Cemetery served the town of Gibsonville in Sierra County.
Gibsonville was established in 1851 by James Gibson who staked a mining claim
he called Secret Ravine. His camp eventually grew into the town of Gibsonville
which by 1853 had five blacksmiths, eleven general stores, five hotels, a
jeweler, four express companies, two sawmills, a bowling alley, two saloons, a
lawyer, one newspaper and one livery stable. During the 1850’s miners from the
surrounding area came to town on Sundays to watch bull and bear fights.
Accounts from 1855 give a town population of 700 people which declined to 200 by
the 1880’s. By the 1870’s there was an established Chinatown within
Gibsonville. In the 1890’s the town continued to decline and by the 1920’s only
four people still lived there. Large portions of the town were destroyed by
hydraulic mining that took place during the 1930’s and 40’s. Today no standing
buildings remain. The cemetery is now the most tangible link to this once
thriving town. Currently the cemetery has forty-five marked graves which range
in date from 1858 to 1999. It also
contains several unmarked graves.
Volunteers from New Mexico, Oregon and California helped
finish the fence reconstruction that was started in 2013 with E Clampus Vitus. Work
included digging post holes, cementing in large cedar fence post, notching the
fence posts for rails and nailing on pickets. Finally at the end of the week
the newly constructed portion of the fence was painted white. Volunteers camped
through chilly evenings and endured cold
mornings sometimes reaching 32 degrees. At the end of the project the
Gibsonville Cemetery fence was complete. The effect to the cemetery is that one
can now enter it and easily see the extent of the graveyard and it also
accentuates just how steep the slopes are.