Logger, miner, freighter, magistrate, farmer -- William LAMBERT is an example of the kind of man it took to wrest Iowa from the wilderness.

William was born in Jersey City. his parents, William and Ann MONAGHAN LAMBERT, had left County Westford, Ireland prior to 1830 to escape the oppression suffered by the Irish under the Penal Law.

The family lived in Jersey City and Chicago where William worked as a blacksmith. in 1843 they entered land n Kenosha County, Wisconsin. They were living there with their nine children when the father William died in 1849.

Young William, 12-years-old, went to work with his brothers inthe pineries along Lake Michigan and Green Bay.

For the next 56 years, William worked. He searched for gold on Cripple Creek, drove an ox-drawn freight wagon between St. Joe and Denver, helped survey and plat the city of Denver, and engaged in cattle raising in Montana.

On his juorney from the shores of Lake Michigan to the gold fields of Colorado, he had traveled across Iowa. He decided then that Iowa was where he wanted to make his home.

In 1870 the brothers did return to Iowa. William purchased land in Sections 14 and 23 from William LUDHAM and Edward KUHN. It was near an Irish Catholic settlement called SHAY'S Settlement.

His brother Joseph settled in Lincoln Township. Their mother, Ann MONAGHAN LAMBERT, twin sisters, Rosa (Mrs. T. S. SHAY) and Margaret (Mrs. James SHEIL), and brother John also left Wisconsin and made their homes in the Maloy area.

So it was that Squire LAMBERT began his life in Iowa.

He was a success as a farmer - raising pigs, cattle, and horses in addition to surviving the droughts, blizzards, and panics of the late 1800's. He also worked as a carpenter, and he and his brother John built the first Catholic Church [St. Mary's at Maloy] in Ringgold County. It was built on three acres of "churchland" carved from Williams' farm, which had been excluded when he bought the land from Edward KUHN. By virtue of his office of Justice of the Peace, which he held for 30 years, he was known as Squire LAMBERT.

In 1877 he married Mary Ellen HART, daughter of Richard and Mary O'CONNELL HART. Mary was born in 1853 in Franklin County, New York, and came with her parents to Taylor County, Iowa about 1870.

William and Mary were the parents of nine children, six girls and three boys. The family took part in all church activities, attended singing school at "Rooster Bend," went skating on the nearby river, and enjoyed frequent gatherings of friends and relatives.

William died in 1907 after being kicked by a horse. Mary and six of the children survived. The children were Ellen "Nell" MULLIN, Beatrice (Sister Magdalen), William Jr., Kathryn (Mrs. John O'CONNOR), Josephine (Mrs. J. B. HULL), and James, who married Marie EASON. All of them lived for many years in the Maloy area.

Descendants still living near Maloy are Regina LYNCH, daughter of Ellen LAMBERT MULLIN and William MULLIN, and her daughters, Joan JACKSON and Joyce WEEHLER, and their families.

NOTES: William "Bill" LAMBERT was born in 1837, and died in 1907.

Mary Ellen (HART) LAMBERT was born April 6, 1853 in New York; and died at Maloy August 3, 1920.

Ann (HART) LAMBERT died at the age of 18 years on March 4, 1888. She was the wife of William R. Lambert who was bron in 1885, and died in 1955.

Anna, daughter of William "Bill" and Mary Ellen (HART) LAMBERT, was born in 1883, and died in 1887.

Ellen E. LAMBERT was born in 1880 and married William Patrick MULLIN. William, the son of Dennis and Margaret (HOULIHAN) MULLIN, was born in Taylory County, Iowa March 3, 1878, and died January 14, 1936, Maloy.

Margaret M. "Maggie" LAMBERT, daughter of William "Bill" and Mary Ellen (HART), was born in 1878, and died in 1898.

Leo Hart LAMBERT, son of William "Bill" and Mary Ellen (HART), was brn August 26, 1879, and died October 16, 1879.

John LAMBERT was born in 1845. The death year on his gravestone stone at St. Mary's Cemetery is uncut. Hannah (DILLON) SULLIVAN LAMBERT, second wife of John LAMBERT (married March of 1879) was born in County Kerry, Ireland in 1845, and died in Maloy March 31, 1932. James W., son of John and Hannah (DILLON) LAMBERT, was born in 1845 and the death year on his gravestone is uncut.

They were interred at St. Mary's Cemetery near Maloy.

SOURCE: Maloy, Iowa Centennial History: 1887 - 1987 p. 130.

Courtesy of Mount Ayr Public Library

Transcription and Notes by Sharon R. Becker, August of 2011