Felix Gillet (1835-1908) and His Barren Hill Nursery in Nevada City, California

Abstract

Felix Gillet was born in Rocheford, France, 25 March 1835, and in late 1852, traveled to Boston, MA to pay his respect to Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the lyrics to “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Either while in Boston, or before, he heard of the gold being discovered in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, and thus traveled from Boston to San Jose, then to Nevada City, CA; the heart of gold country. Being trained as a barber, he set up a barbershop in Nevada City and worked hard, saved money, and bought some barren land just outside of town for a nursery. He also placed an order for $3000.00 of nursery stock from a nursery back home in France. David Fairchild, et al. wrote that Mr. Gillet had no money at first for irrigation and had to water all of his nursery by hand from a well. Felix Gillet named his nursery “Barren Hill Nursery” after the condition of the land when he bought it. Gillet developed his nursery in the 1860s, and simultaneously wrote detailed production articles about mulberries and silk culture, including propagation and production techniques. During that time, he also wrote specific educational articles on the propagation and growing of common deciduous fruiting plants, he became a highly valued, featured contributor to the Pacific Rural Press, thus educating hundreds of farmers of the day. He released a one-page catalog from Barren Hill Nurseries in 1871, His first official catalog covered the 1876-1877 season, and was accompanied by advertisements in 1877 in “The Daily Transcript” newspaper of Nevada City and “The Pacific Rural Press,” selling fruit trees, flower plants, bulbs and seeds. In the advertisement, he called the nursery “Felix Gillet’s Nursery.” Although he sold plants from America, his primary introductions included more than a thousand cultivars and dozens of species of the best European and Asian cultivars of fruits, nuts and ornamentals. Gillet passed away on January 27, 1908. His nursery was continued under the name “Felix Gillet’s Nursery” until 1968. Currently the Felix Gillet Institute is selling fruit and nut nursery stock, propagated from rediscovered trees originally planted during the gold rush era when Gillet was selling his trees to the gold miners and homesteaders.