Monterey County CA Archives Biographies.....Lambert, Thomas Grafton 1826 - 
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Joy Fisher cagwarchives@gmail.com January 13, 2007, 4:59 pm

Author: Luther A. Ingersoll, Editor (1893)

CAPTAIN THOMAS GRAFTON LAMBERT.-There are few names more familiar to the people
of Monterey and adjoining counties than that of Captain Lambert. He belongs to a
class of sturdy pioneers who came to California at a time when her future was
very uncertain. It was before her mineral wealth had been developed or even
discovered. The American flag had only a few months waved on the shores of the
California coast. Her constitution had not yet been formed, and her
individuality as a State of the Union was as yet unestablished. There are now
comparatively few men living who took a part in those early-day scenes and
events of California's infancy, and it is therefore fitting and profitable that
appropriate and becoming note be made on the pages of history, touching the
influences which directed the path of the men whose mature lives have made the
past history of this coast.

  Captain Lambert is a native of the Old Colony State of Massachusetts, born in
Dukes county, January 10, 1826. His father, Thomas H. Lambert, was of New
England ancestry, which dates back to 1662, when the founder of the family
emigrated from England. His mother, Lydia West, was likewise of English
extraction and a member of an old Massachusetts family. Thomas H. Lambert was a
man of affairs. He served the public as Sheriff of Dukes county thirty-nine
consecutive years. He was a man of intrepidity, undaunted courage and cool
judgment, and left to his posterity a most honorable name.

  Of his family, which consisted of three sons and seven daughters, Captain
Lambert is the oldest, and the first one to leave his native State and deal in
the uncertainties of life in the then almost limitless West. He had received a
good common-school education in his native county, and inherited a strong
constitution and many of the pronounced qualities of his sturdy father, and had
developed a vigorous intellect. As opening the way to the gratification of a
desire he had always felt for travel and seeing the outside world, he at the age
of twenty-one years went to sea. He shipped on a New Bedford whaling vessel, the
John Cogswell, and reached the Pacific coast in 1847. He remained on the coast,
with but two brief interruptions, up to 1855, from which date he made the post
of San Francisco his point of departure and return, and up to the year 1869
engaged in no other business than that of a mariner. From 1855 to the close of
his life on the seas he was master of a ship, during which time he visited all
the ports of the west coast, and likewise most of the seaports from Cape Horn to
Southern China. His numerous and extended cruises took him from time to time to
all the various important islands of the Pacific, and he captured whales in
every sea and clime where they have been pursued by man.

  In 1879 he abandoned the seas, located at Monterey, and established himself in
the lumber trade, in which business he still continues. No citizen has become
more thoroughly identified with the material interests of this section of
California business, civil and social, than Captain Lambert. Typically a
business man, he has aimed to confine his energies in strictly business channels.

  In political matters, he has been in a measure aggressive. A Republican in
principle and action, he has persistently worked for and with his party, and,
being a man of methods, broad information and forcible argument, has* done his
party valuable service. He has never sought political favors and never willingly
became a candidate for any office. He was, without his own effort, nominated and
elected to the office of Justice of the Peace of Monterey in 1878, and held the
office for six years. The promptness and efficiency with which he administered
justice is well known to be beyond reproach, and needs no comment.

  Fraternally, Captain Lambert is a prominent figure on the coast. He was
initiated an Apprentice in the order of Free and Accepted Masons May 5, 1862;
has passed the various degrees of the order to the Knighthood, and is a member
of the Watsonville Commandery of Knights Templar. He has for some years been a
member of the Masonic Veterans' Association, and is now its efficient first
Vice-President. He has served the order as a Master Mason since November 4,
1862, a period of almost thirty years.

  Captain Lambert is a public-spirited and patriotic citizen. He inherited a
love of liberty in its broadest sense, and in early life became imbued with the
western spirit of progress. He is versatile in conversation, genial and
courteous in manner, and eloquent as a public speaker. Not infrequently is he
called upon to do the honors of public occasions, such as in the course of
events naturally take place in dignified and historic Monterey. It is such men
as Captain Thomas G. Lambert who have laid the foundation of empire in the
Golden West, have remained with it, fostering its interests, and must soon leave
it as a proud heritage to the coming generations.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Memorial and Biographical History of the Coast Counties of Central California.

Illustrated.

Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast from the
Earliest Period of its Discovery to the Present Time, together with Glimpses of
its Auspicious Future; Illustrations and Full-Page Portraits of some of its
Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of many of its Pioneers, and Prominent
Citizens of To-day.



HENRY D. BARROWS,
Editor of the Historical Department.

LUTHER A. INGERSOLL,
Editor of the Biographical Department.

"A people that take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will
never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote
descendants."-Macaulay.


CHICAGO: THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY.
1893.

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