Name/Title
AU Lambert, Elsie Pauline [Warfel] - 1973-03-17 letter to Mary Elizabeth 'Bette' KnappEntry/Object ID
2004.1.18Context
5361 Park Ave.
Bethel Park, Pa.
March 17, 1973 {Saturday afternoon}
Dear cousin Bette:
I received the package and your letter. I am shut in for the most part today due to the fact that I had a tooth out yesterday and the weather is the worst it has been for a month. I have been thinking a good bit about the history of the family today and altho I can't make out a genealogy today to send to you I might answer some questions to the best of my ability and send on back to you your picture. I have a copy of the account which my father made out also. I do not know where the little book is that was "brought to Ohio from North Carolina." There were so many in the family who were older than my father after N.C. that one of them must have kept the book. I guess Abner Sr stayed in the Barnesville area for that is where he took up land in the first place. There were in the past a good many Lamberts, Stantons and Baileys in and around Barnesville. I once met up with a young woman who was returning to Philadelphia from Barnesville who had been home to yearly meeting. She was a nurse. Her name was Bailey I believe and she said that her grandmother was Elizabeth Stanton. I imagine she meant the Elizabeth Cady Stanton who was rather famous. My great grandmother was Eliz. Stanton Lambert ...so it was according to whether she meant the single or the married name. They lived in Redstone Old Fort (later called Brownesville, Penna.) for a year before the people of our ancestry took up their land in Barnesville. They had it all laid out as to where they were going before they crossed the river. In those days they put their goods, even their wagon on a flat boat and wen down the Monongahela River to the Ohio, up the Ohio and down the Ohio to Wheeling and landed there. It was not far to Barnesville. On the way from N.C. they also resided a year in Winchester Va. before going on. Maybe it was because of the health of Winifred our ancestor. According to the Quaker records all of which have been put into a number of large volumes on the way to Ohio Winifred had a still born child (at the age of about 50..... poor woman!) The records are specific. If the child was still born they just say infant. If it was born alive they give the full name and the date of birth.
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Abner must have been 65 if he was a day when he married that last wife. She was 35 {dad said 40 years}. I thot she had 6 because my father was always telling about the grandfather who has 3 wives and 16 children..... a not to great thing to brag about we thot. But then I thot. But then I thot Winifred had 8 living children {She had 10 children (9 living) + still born}. Quakers were worse than Catholics in that day as to having big families. No wonder men outlived women then. Now it's the other way around.
Quakers were as meticulous as Germans in keeping records. The Quaker index I speak of was made up of the records from the meetings, especially those in N.C. for they were deteriorating and about to be lost. Whole meetings up and left N.C. for the north. This was because of the question of slavery. I always wondered whether Matthew Lambert did not leave.... the Quaker church and stay in N.D. for I can't find him in the Quaker index at all. If so that is probably why he had the slaves.... for they grew indigo cotton and in low places rice. You know that Edwin M. Stanton's mother was Episcopal. He went to Kenyon College an Episcopal School. His father was David one of 6 children of the last widow of Henry Stanton as I remember it. She came with her 6 children with a nephew. He was old and never got to see "the promised land." But generations crossed with these old fellows having 2nd and 3d families and the nephew was probably her age. The way the Philadelphia Quakers and the Georgia Quakers got together with the N.C. Quakers was that they met in Brownesville on their way to Ohio.
What I meant in reference to the Germans is that after the Second World War people who put in claims for the recovery jewelry and other valuables from the Nazis got the stuff back because their descriptions were so meticulous they exactly Matched the German records. I know a Jewish woman who recovered a great deal by writing letters in German back to Germany as to her possessions taken by the Nazis.
Now you say, "Where in England was John Lambert born?" That has always puzzled me also. Was it York? I don't know England well enough to have any idea. Anyhow how they got to America dad said was that General Lambert was banished to the Island of Guernsey. From there they came here. The exact connection between General and John I don't know. John was a favorite name in the Lambert Family. Anyhow this John Lambert had a rival as to what a town was to be named opposite New Hope, Penna. John got to the Legislature first
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and instead of naming it after the ferryman who wanted it named after him it was named after John Lambert, Lambertville, N.J. New Jersey was a good place for Quakers. They were safe in N.J. Now comes Abner II b. 1747. Dad said they moved to Mattemarket N.C. but I could not find it on the map. Also the town of Matamuskeet could not be located even on old maps but there is a lake by that name and it is a natural lake they say in N.C. Un. not an artificial one. Question 3 Where did the information about the 1000 slaves come from? It came from my father. I don't think there was any documentation for it. He said for years that there were 900 slaves but at the time the clipping was printed he was apt to exaggerate a good bit. The picture was a photograph and Mayme Ewing used to have a sepia copy larger than the original hanging on her bedroom wall. Dad liked it especially as at that time he was in the style of Thomas Wolfe "trying to go home again." You know you can't go home again. He was disappointed in his life in Westerville just at that time. He and my second step mother were not getting along too well so he went to S Ohio and tried to restore aunt Hannah Fossett's house as the next door neighbor house belonging to his father had burned down. All that was left was the walk around the house. He was going into Chesterhill on wee ends and Sundays and taught some S.S. and became sort of a citizen of the town. He had a painting make of the photograph by a local artist and gave each of us one. It meant nothing to me so I gave it to Mayme of Jeanette and they to David. Lucile still has hers in her basement playroom. The land down there was burned out... worn out and farming was next to impossible. Now there are trees... sort of a forest and there were some coal mines along the Ohio R. manufacturing. All the early settlers of very fine stock were gone and negroes and hill Billie's inhabited the countryside.
We all went down to S. Ohio on the hottest day of a summer for a reunion at Mt Hermon (church where his father preached). Martha, my step mother rode down with us. We took lunches. Grace Selby Smith, and husband, Bertha Selby and husband, George Selby and wife were there also. The whole thing was sort of crazy. We went to the church for speeches. He made much over the Selbys but did not introduce his own wife and said very little about his own children. He was a little funny at the time. He had a well in the porch out of which you got the water by letting down a bucket. He paneled the living room with chestnut wood and left the kitchen so primitive it was less usable than one in 1800. He spent a lot of money on fertilizer and contended with colored living in the chicken house
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Martha rode back to Westerville with us. She did go down at times and stay as long as a week. I did not blame her. He wanted the kitchen to be primitive so she would have to "fetch and carry." He had a good house in Westerville and later came to his senses and came back there to live. Alva was a little on the same order. He went down and cut down the black walnut trees.... and built himself a shack and stayed for a while.
Dad wasted $10,000 on that God forsaken place. My second step mother Martha Phillips V. Lambert was a clever woman. She is listed as one of the well known Westerville writers. Lives now in Hollywood, is 92 and just this year has had several stories published. But they were both very strong willed and neither would give in in a argument and so it was tip for tat for 19 years when he told her to go to Calif and stay and she did wanting no divorce but he wanted one. But neither could get ahead of the other as to big reasons why the other was wrong and so they split evenly. Then he rushed right out and married an old old friend Henrietta Dupree Lesher a widow of 19 years time. She had divorced her husband 19 years before... was a close friend of Mayme and Becky and us and grandpa and grandpa when they lived. ...had 7 children. He said it was all right because he had known her for 60 years and he was sure we would approve. We did. She fitted Westerville exactly and was much liked there and they were happy for a few years before he died in 1954. He and my mother Loretta Lucile Adams were married for 30 years before she died in 1930 just before I was married. They met at Otterbein College. A year after my mother died he tried to emulate his ancestor and marry a younger woman. She was 35. ...a widow with a boy 18 and a girl 9. But it did not work. They were divorced before the year was out. She took her things and went back to Hamilton O where she came from. Then he met Martha from Colorado thru a friend.
There were many ups and downs in my father's life. He was a strong person in many ways.... would make a great novel. My mother was gentle and a true gentle woman. ....of New England ancestry which clashed with the Quaker ancestry of dad at times. So dad sometimes exaggerated. ....to make a point.
I do not have a record of over 1000 descendants of Abner II. There were a bunch of letters written in the 30s I sent Ernest long ago. I only have copies of those somewhere.
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I'll see if I can locate a copy of the Swarthmore record and if I can I'll include it.
As for the Stantons, the main thing that is wrong with their record is the lack of dates in a good many cases. There are 2 books of Stanton genealogy. Robert Stanton was not a signer of the Mayflower Compact I am almost sure. They came from New Eng to Newport R.I. for refuge. There at Newport there was set up a Quaker Compact of which he was in all likelihood a member. The reason Henry Stanton left Newport was that he disagreed with his neighbors. My father was a true Stanton as far as arguments were concerned also. Anyhow Henry was a Hicksite Quaker and made much of that. Therefore he disagreed with many and so took off for N. Carolina. He did well in N.C. becoming quite rich at Beaufort where he built and repaired ships.... for many were wrecked on the outer reefs. But he was still a believer in his principles.... which came to include the idea that slavery was wrong altho he was old then he decided to leave all and go to Ohio. Those Quakers set their slaves free and saw that they got to the West Indies or took them with them to Ohio and settled some in Ohio and saw that some got to Canada. If they had not done this the state of N.C. would have resold them.
Some day I'll fix up a proper genealogical record for you. And I'll send it to you. Once I asked Mayme Ewing how her brother got the name Chalkley and she said he was named after an uncle and that was all she knew. Well living around Philadelphia for 6 1/2 years I found out. Thomas Chalkley was a well known Phil. Quaker who got rich before the age of 50 and from then on became a Q. preacher. Elwood and Barkley were also Quaker divines. In our family Otterbein is a popular name because it was the name of the founder of the U.B. Church, Philip Wm Otterbein. It's like the Methodists with John Wesley.
Well this may sound like a rainy day discourse but it will have to be enough for now. Lucile and her husband and I went to a Quaker settlement this summer to see the restored meeting house where the Stantons used to worship and where some of the Lamberts went to school.... Mt Pleasant in Ohio. There used to be an Academy there. Around Philadelphia Quaker schools are very popular.... excellent... all private and sometimes quite expensive.
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So our folds have always been interested in education. Also in California they settled in and around Whittier where Nixon is from.
I don't know whether you would say that the Quakers were stronger than the Adams family or not but I admire one as much as the other. My mother's ancestor at the time of President John Adams was a first cousin of the President. They were sort of stubborn too.
Sunday Mar 18, 1973
Just to show how little connection there is between us and even David Ewing I just read in "Towers," alumni magazine of Otterbein College of the death of Earl Hopkins Dec. 25th 1972. I know his son's name is Mark. I don't know where he lives, if he is married or not either. His daughter- Carol is married and I guess still lives in Columbus but, I don't know her last name. David married the former Gov. Rhodes sister and they had not children. They often entertained the governor's 3 daughters in their home. They had a home in Worthington and the telephone book listed them as residing on Westerville Road north of Westerville due probably to the fact that he owned a farm on the new highway.... which was politically a good thing to do. Lucile could never contact them when she called there. They did not notify any of us when Mayme died. Even Ellis told Lucile that she felt very badly because they did not let her know anything about it. We were so close to Mayme and Jeanette in Cleveland Heights when we lived there for 2 years just before the war began and a little after. I called Mayme aunt Mayme. They were great people. David was unhappy in his first marriage and was divorced and married again. We belonged to Heights Presbyterian Church where Mayme and Jeanette belonged, one of the outstanding churches in the Cleveland area. I had the first house in the Rockefeller addition of Cleveland Heights, a most beautiful area. The church is now located there. I am sorry about the deaths of Paul Selby and Ellis so soon after. There was a memorial service Community Church in Upper Arlington for them. John Selby's wife sent us a program for it. Bricker and his wife best friends of Paul's are still living. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary not too long ago. A friend of mine was a close friend other theirs and she let me know about it. She was there. Norma Hopkin's son David Putnam's mother in law married David Sr. after Norma died.
Earl Hopkins taught for a short time at Otterbein College and that is why they had an account of his death. Mabel Dunn Hopkins, his wife, taught there for a long time and
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she was made much of when she died. Earl taught at "Capitol Un" for a long time. That college is in Columbus. He was the first director of the Columbus. He was the first director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. Norma was concert master at the time. You probably know all this anyhow.
They were as close to our immediate family as first cousins but a funny thing Ellis seemed closer than Paul, my first cousin in later years. I knew Grace Selby Smith when I lived in Mt Vernon Ill but did not meet her children except Elizabeth who came to our house with her once when she came home from wandering around the world. She had not married then. She had worked in Mt Vernon in years past and knew people in Mt Vernon who she wanted to visit. Grace told me about all of her children. Grace was chosen Mother of the year in Illinois one year. Of her 10 children all either graduated from the Un. of Ill one place or another or attended. At that time they lived entirely on the first floor. The apple business was beginning not to be too profitable in S. Ill. at that time. One son was still in the business and he lived nearby and he and his father talked over the market every day.
My father like Edwin M. Stanton, whom he and his father resembled so much in looks that you would have thot they were son and grandson of Edwin M, were at times very stubborn and one time my grandma, Deborah Vernon Embree Lambert told my other grandma Mary S. Harris Adams that she thot it was partly her fault.... a funny thing for that dear lady to say, because about the time my father was born she had passed 2 years without signs of another birth and she thot Bertha was the last child she was going to have to have. But then she found out it was not so and later she had my father. After that she took the births of the last two children in stride. She felt God must have sort of punished her for being glad there were to be no more I guess.
This is the worst snow storm we have had this year and I am snowed in and don't feel too spry at that. Therefore I can write. My son was almost forced not to travel in Tennessee Friday. He got to Birmingham Ala in late afternoon but said the rains were terrible and he could hardly see to drive the car. He sounded very tired. He was at Carters where his wife was visiting (her parents).
(over)
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I'll try to find those records now.
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Sunday afternoon
I have been working on our side of the genealogy today from records I have that do not differ too much from yours. There are a good many gaps in Daniel Lambert's side. Now there are so many generations beyond what dad had put down it's hard. I may get some more facts from my first cousin John Mayne. His brother Horace just died and there are only the 2 Maynes left John and Dwight of Ontario Calif. John lives in Arlington Va. I can't find Elizabeth's story of her journey across Ohio to Athens County. I have put it away in a box in the attic I guess. I will still try to find it. I have a lot of sorting to do for the sake of my son and daughter in law who won't know one thing from another once I am gone if I don't collect it in one place. John Mayne my age is now a great grandfather to at least 3 children. His daughter Betty Mayne Vequist of Pittsburg Kansas (husband a prof) has I think it is 5 children, had 4 boys and then a girl. Two of her sons are married and have children. Betty went back to college to get her A.B. degree after they mostly got over the responsibility of putting the children thru. I was married late and my son was married late so I am not a great grandmother, only a grandmother.
Well, I guess I had better stop for now. I will try to do some more work on the listings tomorrow.
Sincerely,
{Pauline}
{John wrote and sent me records he had but they are duplicates of mine.
Included what I have written so far. Not in exact order as you would like.
Will send all addresses I have to you later. They might help.}
