John Edward Lambert, born August 19, 1837, in Franklin County, Virginia, was a leading agriculturist and stock-raiser in Nemaha Precinct, Nebraska. Lambert moved to Nemaha County over 35 years ago, transforming his initial poor health and financial state into prosperity through hard work. He served in the Union Army during the Civil War, experiencing capture and imprisonment by the Confederates. In 1867, Lambert relocated to Nebraska, eventually acquiring 586 acres of farmland. He married Tena Webber in 1873, and they had five children. Lambert’s success in farming and commitment to community marked his long residency in the county.
John Edward Lambert, one of the leading agriculturists and stock-raisers of Nemaha precinct, Nemaha post office, has been a resident of Nemaha County for over thirty-five years. Coming here poor in health and pocket, he has taken advantage of opportunities as they presented themselves, has been an indefatigable worker in everything that he has undertaken, and his efforts have been rewarded by his being now in the front rank of the farmers of the county.
Mr. Lambert was born in Franklin County, Virginia, August 19, 1837. His grandfather and grandmother were Virginia farmers, and the latter (née Moore) was old enough to spin during the Revolution. Two of their sons volunteered for service in the Mexican War and were made officers, and one was disabled while drilling cavalry troops and the other was killed by his horse. Two other sons came and settled in Missouri in an early day. Grandmother Lambert died in Virginia when nearly a centenarian.
Edward Lambert, the father of John Edward Lambert, was born in Virginia about 1796 and died in Montgomery County of that state in 1862. He was a wagon-maker by trade and had his shop on his farm, which he also tilled. He married Sarah Acres, of Virginia, who was related by marriage to the celebrated Pocahontas. She died in 1865 when nearly sixty-seven years old. Edward Lambert was a man of great strength and vigorous constitution, and his death was caused by falling into ice-cold water, from which he contracted lung fever. Neither of them was a member of any church, but they reared their children under the best moral influences. They had a large family of children: Clayton, a farmer, died in Virginia about fifty years old, and had four children; Martha Ann, the wife of John Poff, died in Virginia at about forty-five, the mother of two sons and one daughter; Daniel is employed on public works in various parts of the country and did not marry till late in life, having one son; William A. came to Nebraska in 1857, and is a farmer in Nemaha precinct; Amanda is the wife of George W. Broce, in Tennessee, and has six sons and six daughters; Adaline is the wife of Lewis Broce, in Ironton, Ohio, and has two daughters; Samuel Henry was accidentally killed by his brother at the age of three; John E. is the next of the children; Fleming Joseph, a farmer near Oxford Junction, Nebraska, came to the state with his brother John, arriving on the day the state was admitted into the Union; Susan Elizabeth is the wife of Benjamin Moore, in Mississippi, and has nine children.
John Edward Lambert had very few advantages in the subscription schools of Virginia, and at the age of twenty years left the home in Montgomery County with the intention of coming to Nebraska. He stopped, however, in Lawrence County, Ohio, and worked on a farm by the month for a year at twelve dollars a month, the usual wages being even lower than that. He then returned to Virginia and remained there until the latter part of 1861, when he enlisted in Company K, Eighth Virginia Infantry, of the Union army. He was taken sick in camp and was in the hospital for some time, and when he started to join his regiment he was captured by the Confederates. He was kept in durance vile for about two years, in the jails at Staunton, Lynchburg, Belle Isle, and in Libby. He escaped twice and was recaptured, but finally took permanent departure from captivity and was secreted from the rebels during the rest of the war. In 1867 he came with his brother Fleming to Nebraska, directly from Virginia. He had fifty dollars of borrowed money and was an invalid from the exposure of prison life. The dry air of the western prairies soon reinvigorated him, and he was able to ply energetically his trade of mason, and was also a tenant farmer both before and after his marriage. After his marriage he sold the forty acres which he had managed to acquire, but since then has been continually adding to his real estate interests until he is now owner of five hundred and eighty-six acres of contiguous land, with two dwellings and barns, and he has a tenant farmer on a part of the land. He has successfully carried on mixed farming, raising as high as ten thousand bushels of corn annually. During the thirty-six years that he has spent in this state his average yearly profits have been a thousand dollars, which is a record to be proud of.
Mr. Lambert was married December 9, 1873, to Miss Tena Webber, who was born in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, a daughter of John and Polly (Morse) Webber, farmers, who came to Missouri in 1859, and in 1866 to this neighborhood, where they bought forty acres; they reared two children, and Mr. Webber had two sons and a daughter by a former marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Lambert have had five children: Dora, the wife of R. L. Keister, died at the age of twenty-five; Luella, whom everyone called Lou, was the wife of William Russell, and died a bride of two months, at the age of nineteen; Miss Sarah Ada, aged nineteen, is at home; Waverly M. died aged eighteen months; Dan is in the district school. Mr. Lambert has been a Republican in principle but is now independent in the casting of his vote. He has been successful in the ultimate outcome of his business career.
Source: Lewis Publishing Company, A Biographical and Genealogical History of Southeastern Nebraska, 2 volumes, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904.