LAMBERT, JONATHAN (August 9, 1743 -- Nov. 9, 1804)Seafarer. Nobody was more familiar with Count Casimir Pulaski's first day on American soil than Jonathan Lambert, who was one of the highest officers of the Massachusetts for almost its entire history. In the third month of 1777, one year after it was built at Salisbury on the Merrimac River, the Massachusetts Board of War heard the brigantine was one of the most daring and skilled navigators that ever sailed from Salem, then one of the largest cities in the country, and sent it to France to pick up badly needed supplies for its troops. By the vicissitudes of war, the officers and sailors of the ship enjoyed the company of Pulaski and two companions who slept on straw upon the return of the sailing vessel to Salem. The story of Lt. Lambert, whom Pulaski first met in Nantes, France, June 9, 1777, when he boarded the Massachusetts, offers a rare look into the life of a distinguished Polish soldier of liberty.
A native of Salem, Jonathan Lambert came from a long line of seafarers. His father was a sea captain. His grandfather was a sea captain, and so on, dating back to 1635. The first Lambert sailed to New England on the Susan and Ellen from London, England. Jonathan Lambert was born in Salem, August 9, 1743, and started his own family of nine children in 1768. He was seldom mentioned in the Salem Gazette. Then, on the first day of 1776, when he was returning from Surinam, a Dutch colony in South America, with a cargo of molasses, the America, as his brig was called, was captured and towed to Antigua, British West Indies, for trial. Needless to say, he lost everything he owned.
Supposedly he learned French when sailing to foreign ports, and, while crossing the ocean with Pulaski, beginning June 11, 1777, one would judge, Pulaski, who spoke French, learned from Lambert to speak English in one way or other a little bit, but badly, enough to fight for liberty. Pulaski did not waste his time on board the Massachusetts. "I am beginning to learn the sailor's trade," he wrote in French after five days at sea to Claude de Rulhiere, the first of three Frenchmen who had negotiated with Benjamin Franklin to obtain his help (i.e., letter to General Washington, May 27, 1777) in favor of a commission for Pulaski in the Continental Army. "Perhaps if I could not be well placed in service on land, I would try to find happiness on the sea."
Although Pulaski had many things in mind, the first sign of his itinerary in America appeared in a letter by Captain John Fiske, dated July 23, 1777, in the 44th day of the voyage, when the Massachusetts was in Marblehead harbor, off the coast of Marblehead, to Samuel P. Savage, president of the Massachusetts Board of War, and he handed it to Lt. Lambert. Leaving out many details, Fiske pointed out to Savage that Lambert would introduce Pulaski to him.
At this point, the fastest and best way for Lambert and Pulaski to reach Savage, who lived on a small farm at Weston, 17 miles from Boston, was to take a lighter craft, the forerunner of a dory, from the ship to the nearest wharf in Marblehead, a staggering village of 4,336 people on a rocky peninsula between two distinct harbors, 14 miles northeast of Boston, where one stage coach left Bunch-of-Grapes Tavern on Ye Queens Highway (changed to Washington St. in 1824) for Boston every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning and returned the same day. July 23, 1777, was a Wednesday. According to a newspaper advertisement of Ebenezer Warner & Co., on the morning of July 23, to accomplish their mission as fast as possible, Lambert and Pulaski paid several shillings at Bunch-of-Grapes Tavern for seats in a stage coach from Marblehead to Mrs. Bean's, the terminus of the stage line, on King Street (now State Street) in Boston.
Had they waited in Boston for the next stage coach to go by Weston, it would have required more travel time. In the meantime, no matter how they traveled from Boston to Weston, whether by stagecoach, horse and carriage, or horseback, Captain Fiske did not expect them to return to Marblehead, for the ship was moored at Salem the following day, July 24, 1777, when George Williams, who had a large warehouse at Salem, billed the Massachusetts Board of War more than twenty pounds for storing the cargo Captain Fiske brought from France. One wonders what Williams did with the straw that was Pulaski's bed.
Now, 234 years since Pulaski came to fight for American independence, the efforts of Polish organizations to mark his arrival has regretfully not gone well. Back in 1976, when I was on a field trip to Massachusetts to trace some of Pulaski's movements, I presented some of my findings to Robert Moody, with whom I had a great deal in common, and expected a little back and forth. It didn't happen.
As a result of Moody's activities, the eastern district of the Polish American Congress erected a plaque at Fort Sewall in Marblehead in 1989. Not many liked it. Quietly, without my knowledge, the wording was revised, and again it distorted history. For the first time, in October, when Peter J. Obst returned from Boston with a copy and sent it to me, I was flabbergasted that the Polish Cultural Foundation, which published a brochure when the second plaque was unveiled on October 18, 2009, was not better informed about the Polish hero of the American Revolution.
First, contrary to the plaque, Pulaski had nothing to do with Fort Sewall and sailing across Salem harbor. After the trip to Weston, Pulaski had to catch up with his two companions who were stranded in Salem -- Ignacy (Jan) Zielinski and Dr. Nicholas de Belleville -- and either he waited for them in Boston, where he was entertained by General William Heath on Friday, three days after leaving the Massachusetts, or Lt. Lambert led him to Salem from Boston. It was a different route than the one on July 23. With or without Pulaski, Lt. Lambert returned to his beloved ship in Salem to pick up his belongings and pay.
After landing in Salem, Captain Fiske took a vacation and the Massachusetts was idle for about a month. Lambert spent it with his family in Salem and nine months later his wife bore their eighth child. On October 24, 1777, after a short tour of duty, Fiske resigned as commander of the brigantine and said it was uncomfortable to live on it in the wintertime. Lambert then took his place and he, in turn, left the Massachusetts to prey on British shipping in his own ships. Soon afterwards, the Massachusetts was lost at sea or captured. Ironically, had Pulaski not gotten to be a general under Washington, he might have commanded the Massachusetts and created another mystery until his body was identified in the 1990s.
In case you don't know, and much less care, Pulaski died October 15, 1779, on the brig Wasp and what remains of him lies today in front of the Pulaski Monument in Savannah, Georgia. Anyone who forgets it is a dummy. With or without shame, it took 234 years to tell you where Pulaski spent his first day in America.
Author: Edward Pinkowski (2011) [email protected]