This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Tibbet, Callahan, Lawrence, Baker, Hoke, Larsen Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/JW.2ADE/7392.5 Message Board Post: HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY by Wallace M. Morgan The Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California; 1914 Mrs. REBECCA TIBBET - Among the very first settlers on Kern Island and a pioneer of Kern county is Mrs. Rebecca Tibbet, who came hither on March 1, 1864, with her husband and four children. Grandma Tibbet, as she is called, was born in La Grange county, Ind., July 31, 1835 and was the daughter of Nathaniel and Annie (Lawrence) Callahan, natives of Delaware and Ohio, respectively. In her native county Rebecca Callahan was brought up and received her education in the local schools of the day. There she was married April 24, 1853 to Edward Tibbet, a native of Ohio. The week after their marriage they started on their honeymoon trip which arrangement included a trip by boat to St. Joe, Mo., and thence they crossed the plains by the overland trail with ox teams, being en route from May 3 until November 25, when they arrived at San Gabriel mission. They located in Arroyo Seco, now Pasadena, then a Spanish grant, where Mr. Tibbet was engaged in cutting wood, which he disposed of in Los Angeles. In 1864 they located on Kern Island and purchased an eighty acre farm from Colonel Baker and later homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres adjoining, all of which now adjoins the city on the south. They paid for the eighty acres by raising beef, beans and vegetables, and afterward continued farming and stockraising. Mr. Tibbet died in 1879, at fifty-two years of age. Since her husband's death she continues to reside at her old home, making it her residence except when she visits her children. She became the mother of twelve children, seven of whom grew up as follows: Eliza, Mrs. W. T. Hoke, of Los Angeles; George, deceased, at one time city marshal of Bakersfield; William, who was killed by the desperado McKinney while performing his duty as a deputy sheriff; Alfred, who died at his home near Bakersfield October 26, 1913; Emma, Mrs. C. P. Larsen, who resides in Bakersfield; Edward, also of Bakersfield; and Burton M., of Taft. Mr. and Mrs. Tibbet were pioneer members of the Methodist church and assisted in organizing the First Methodist Episcopal church in Bakersfield, in which Mr. Tibbet was trustee and class leader as well as superintendent of the Sunday school. About twenty years ago, when the Salvation Army was organized in this city, Mrs. Tibbet became a member and has since been active in the cause. Sharon Kern Co. Volunteer