If you will look in the dictionary, you will learn that the name Lambert means: "Illustrous with
landed possessions, or a keeper of sheep or lambs," and, carried a little farther, I presume, a keeper
of livestock - a farmer, in other words, but of the higher type. Not a tenant but a landlord.
So far as we are informed, the ancestors of our revered progenitor, John lambert, whose memory we are
today commemorating, are pretty largely tillers of the soil. My father told me that Grandfather Lambert
told him that his father and grandfather, who, as you know, lived in Yorkshire, England, were in the
habit of going to Scotland each fall and bringing back a herd of black cattle (presumably of the
Galloway and Angus breeds), fattening them on oil cake and then driving them to London for market. So
by name and by practice the Lamberts are farmers. I think that today, perhaps, we of this family line
do not claim to be illustrous with landed or livestock possessions.
We are told by our kinsfolk, the descendants of Charles Lambert, known by us as the "Salt Lake Lamberts,"
that all the Lamberts of Yorkshire, England, were of a common stock and that they traced their ancestry
back to one Sir Rudolphus Lambert, an uncle of William the Conqueror, who came to England from
Normandy in 1066 A.D. This man, Rudolphus Lambert, was alloted an estate in Yorkshire.
Are there any famous men among our ancestors? Look in the back of the big dictionary and you will see
the name of Daniel Lambert, huge Englishman, weighed 739 pounds. Grandfather Lambert said that this
man was a member of our family and that when he died it was impossible to get him out of the door.
The side of the cabin was taken out in order to get him out. This is the only famous Lambert that I
know anything about. The rest of us are common people, "the kind the Lord loves," concludes Lincoln,
"because He made so many of them."
I have heard it said that the most ancient family of Lamberts yet discovered was a family of German
barbarians who settled in Italy about the time of the Fall of Rome. They were robbers. May we warn
those zealous climbers up the family tree to beware lest a cocoanut fall on their heads.
John Lambert, the head of this family, was born in Gargrave,
Yorkshire, England, on January 31, 1820.
It is a significant fact to note that Charles Lambert, the progenitor of the Salt Lake family of
Lamberts, was born in Yorkshire, England, August 30, 1816. You see that he was from the same County
in England and only 3 1/2 years older.
John Lambert first heard this Latter-day gospel preached by Elder Frances Moon in 1837 and was baptized
in October of the same year. In 1840 John Lambert
emigrated with his brother to America, coming on
the sailing vessel "North America" and spending thirty-two days on the water. Landing at New York,
they took a steamboat up the Hudson to Albany where they transferred to a flat, horse-drawn boat on
the Erie Canal, which took them to Buffalo, New York. I recall my father, John C. Lambert, telling me
that Grandfather told him that the boat on the canal travelled so slowly that they had time to explore
the countryside where they found an abundance of wild apples, which they relished.
From Buffalo these Lambert brothers, Richard and John, sailed the lakes to Chicago. From Chicago they
travelled by wagon and horses to a point on Rock River where they built a flat boat in which they
floated down the Rock River and the Mississippi, arriving at Nauvoo, Illinois, sometime in the fall
of 1840.
For ten years John Lambert lived with the Mormons in Illinois,
Missouri, and Iowa. He was a member of the
Nauvoo Legion. He wrestled, he jumped, he soldiered with Joseph Smith. This close association with
the great leader,
Joseph Smith, was an important period of training in the life of our esteemed
progenitor. It is interesting to note here that John Lambert was about the same size and build as
Joseph Smith, though fourteen years younger than the Prophet.
Richard, the older brother, remained in illinois. He became a leader in the Reorganized [LDS] Church
and his grandson,
Walter W. Head, whose mother was Margaret, is an eminent banker and President of
the boy Scouts of America. He lives in Chicago.
John Lambert married
Miss Adelia G. Groesbeck, an intellectual woman of Dutch descent, at Sugar Creek,
Iowa, on February 6, 1846. Two children,
Adelaide and
John Carlos, were born to them before they
emigrated to Utah in the fall of 1850.
They settled in the Second Ward in Salt Lake City and built a fence around the first lot in the Ward.
This lot was located at 7th South and 4th East. At this place the following children were born:
Mary Adelia,
Sarah Amelia,
Richard Franklin,
Jedediah Grant and
Ann Maria.
In 1855 at Salt Lake City, John Lambert married
Miss Elena Hansena Larsen, a Danish girl (and by the way, first to be baptized in Denmark). The
following children were born to this union in the Salt Lake home:
Joseph Heber,
Ephraim, and
Dan.
Grandfather's
mother and a
younger brother [Joseph] also came to Utah. His mother was buried in
Wellsville and the brother died young in Salt Lake city.
John Lambert spent almost eleven years in Salt Lake City, during which time, among other vocations,
he farmed a ten-acre tract south of the city and worked as a mason on the Salt Lake Temple. It is
said that Brigham Young offered him the lot where the Salt Lake Theatre was later built if he would
continue to work on the Temple, but grandfather did not like the bosses under whom he was expected to
work, so he declined. He had a chance to acquire the land where the Gilmer Park now is, but instead
he, with his two wives, and their families, moved to Kamas in the spring of 1861, where
Emma Cordelia and
Mercy were born to Adelia, the first wife, and
Elena Dorothy,
Elizabeth,
Cornelia,
Benjamin,
Parley and
Emmeline were born to Hansena, the second wife.
 There are now [1932] surviving, of the first wife's children:
Mary A. Gibson, of Vernal, Utah -82 years of age
Anne M. White, of Tabiona, Utah -72 years of age
Emma Pack, of Kamas, Utah -68 years of age
Mercy Lewis, of Kamas, Utah -66 years of age
The following children of the second wife survive:
Joseph Heber, of Roosevelt, Utah -76 years of age
Ephraim, of Roosevelt, Utah -74 years of age
Elena, of Provo, Utah -67 years of age
Cornelia, of Duchesne, Utah -62 years of age
Emmeline, of Park City, Utah -53 years of age
 From Kamas, Utah, the descendants of John Lambert have pioneered Uinta, Wasatch and Duchesne Counties.
His posterity now numbers 523 souls.
I was hardly six years old when Grandfather died, but I remember vividly some incidents. When Alma
Warr's new Rock store was completed Grandfather hitched Dime and Sid, his old team, to a wagon, took
my brother Roy and myself into the spring seat and drove to the store where he bought us some stick
candy. In giving it to us he said, "Now suck it, don't chew it." I remember seeing him hide in our
coal house when he thought the U.S. Marshall was after him [because he was a polygamist].
John Lambert, great pioneer and patriarch, died at Kamas, Utah, November 25, 1893.
= - = - = - = - = - = - = - =
*John Lambert's total miles traveled from Marsden Heights, Lancashire, England, to Nauvoo, Illinois,
United States, was about 5,200.
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