California Biographies, Kern County
MRS. HARRIET VAN ORMAN

History of Kern County, California, with biographical sketches 
of the leading men and women of the county who have been 
identified with its growth and development from the early days 
to the present.

Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company, 1914
History by Morgan, Wallace Melvin

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


MRS. HARRIET VAN ORMAN.— Any list of the pioneers of Bakers- 
field would be incomplete without the name of Mrs. Van Orman, whose life 
has been identified with this place continuously since 1860 and who has 
witnessed the remarkable transformation of the community from a desolate, 
unpeopled spot to a large city, teeming with industry and surrounded by 
fertile, well-tilled fields. No attribute of her character is more pronounced 
than that of devotion to the community of her adoption. Every part of the 
city possesses for her a unique interest, far beyond the feeling it would 
arouse in the casual visitor. For many years she has lived at her present 
home on the corner of Seventeenth and K streets, where it is her expecta- 
tion to remain until her earth life ends and where she will continue to watch 
with unabated pleasure the upward growth of Bakersfield. Even in the days 
when Kern Island had no population excepting rabbits, mosquitoes and 
gnats, when the sole crop was weeds and the sole visitor an occasional 
wandering Indian, she had faith that a large city would one day stand on 
the spot, and she is equally optimistic now concerning Bakersfield's great 
future and large influence as a business center. 

Harriet Taylor was born at Jonesboro, Tenn., September 26, 1835, and 
is a daughter of the late Skelton and Mary (McCray) Taylor, natives re- 
spectively of Virginia and South Carolina. Her paternal grandfather, Henry 
Taylor, was a soldier in the war of 1812 and her great-grandfather, Christo- 
pher Taylor, who descended from English ancestry, served in the Revolu- 
tion. The maternal grandfather, Henry McCray, a native of Scotland, mar- 
ried a Miss Moore of South Carolina and became a large planter on the 
Chattahoochee river in Georgia. When she was one year old her parents 
moved to Alabama and settled at Huntsville, where she was educated in 
private schools and an academy. At the age of fifteen she accompanied 
her family to Texas and there completed her education in a private school. 

At Bonham, Tex., in 1854, Miss Taylor became the wife of Robert Gil- 
bert, a native of Tennessee and for years a large land owner in Texas, 
where he built and operated a saw and grist mill on Bordeaux lake. Two 
children were born of their union. The sun, William Gilbert, became a 
mining man and died at Bakersfield in 1904. The daughter, Mrs. Callie 
Pettit, is now living at  ___ n, Kern county. During 1859 Mr. and Mrs. 
Gilbert, accompanied by their two children, removed from Texas to Cali- 
fornia, making the journey via the Butterfield stage-coach. Their destina- 
tion was San Jose, but in the fall of the same year they settled at Visalia 
and September 26, 1860, they arrived at what is now the site of Bakersfield. 
Later Mrs. Gilbert took up a claim of a quarter section on section 18, near 
Bellevue. and afterward she became a shareholder in the canal, which made 
it possible for her to put the place under cultivation to alfalfa. Her second 
marriage united her with N. Van Orman, of this county. Having been well 
posted concerning affairs in early days and possessing a retentive memory, 
she is a very interesting conversationalist and an hour spent in her society, 
when she is in a reminiscent mood, enables one to gain a vivid comprehen- 
sion of the trials, hardships and discouragements of those far distant days.