Background
Benjamin Peffer Lamberton, the son of James Findlay and Elizabeth (Peffer) Lamberton, was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.
Benjamin Peffer Lamberton, the son of James Findlay and Elizabeth (Peffer) Lamberton, was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.
He attended Carlisle high school and Dickinson preparatory school. In 1858 he entered Dickinson College and continued there until the end of his junior year. His imagination having been fired by contact with the army post at Carlisle, his first desire had been for a military career, and it was this that finally led to his securing an appointment as midshipman in the navy. He entered the Naval Academy in 1861 with a large war class and was graduated at the end of three years in the upper section.
After various assignments in the Atlantic and Pacific squadrons, in 1885 he attained the grade of commander and was ordered to Charleston as lighthouse inspector. There must have been something in this service that had unusual interest for him, since he had four assignments under the Lighthouse Board, covering ten years.
In the spring of 1898, on being ordered to the Asiatic Station, he succeeded in reaching the American squadron at Hong Kong just before it sailed for Manila. He had been detailed to command the cruiser Boston, but Commodore Dewey created for him the position of chief of staff. As the American force engaged the Spanish in Manila Bay, he was standing next to Dewey on the bridge. The following morning when the Spanish flag was flying over the arsenal at Cavite, he went in the Petrel to demand its surrender. Later he was given charge of removing the sick and wounded Spaniards to the captured steamer Isabel and of taking them to Manila. When the American army arrived, and the Spaniards in Manila capitulated, he was the naval representative on the joint commission that determined the details of surrender.
He had been highly commended by Dewey in his report of the battle of Manila Bay, and Congress advanced him seven numbers. On the 17th of May he was promoted to the rank of captain, and later was given command of the Olympia. In 1903 he was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral and made commander-in-chief of the South Atlantic Squadron, but this duty was cut short by a serious eye trouble that had its origin in his close proximity to the large guns of the Olympia during the firing in Manila Bay.
In 1905 he was made chairman of the Lighthouse Board, holding this office until he was retired for age, February 25, 1906. His last years were spent in Washington, where he died. His letters show that home ties meant much to him. His father died when Lamberton was a boy, and out of his naval pay he provided for his mother. His cheerfulness was contagious, for it was the expression of good health and abounding vitality. He was fond of walking and outdoor sports. Often he was the companion of President Cleveland in duck shooting and fishing, and their friendship continued to the end.
Lamberton served as a naval officer in the Spanish–American War. He distinguished himself during the Battle of Manila Bay being on board Admiral George Dewey's flagship Olympia. He also later acted as naval representative to the negotiating of the Spanish surrender. The destroyer USS Lamberton, launched in March 1918, was named for him.
Quotations: Dewey wrote after his assignment as chief of staff: "I secured the aid of a most active and accomplished officer when there was positive need of his services; but not until later did I realize how much I owed to the sympathetic companionship of Lamberton's sunny, hopeful, and tactful disposition" (Autobiography, post, pp. 193-94).
On February 25, 1873, Lamberton married Elizabeth Marshall Stedman of Boston.
