Monsignor

Monsignor

Monsignor, pl. monsignori, is the form of address for those members of the clergy of the Catholic Church holding certain ecclesiastical honorific titles. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian monsignore, from the French mon seigneur, meaning "my lord"...

 Andrew Arnold Lambing or Rev. A. A. Lambing (1842–1918) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Roman Catholic priest

Priest

A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

 and historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

. He was one of the nation's foremost priest-historians, having founded the first Catholic historical society in the United States (The Ohio Valley Catholic Historical Society, in February 1884) as well as the first Catholic historical quarterly.

Born in a hamlet that became Manorville

Manorville, Pennsylvania

Manorville is a borough in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 401 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Manorville is located at ....

, Armstrong County

Armstrong County, Pennsylvania

Armstrong County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the population was 68,941. It is located northeast of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. Armstrong County was added to the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area in 2003.The county seat is Kittanning...

, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, adjacent to Ford City

Ford City, Pennsylvania

Ford City is a borough in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, United States, northeast of Pittsburgh along the east bank of the Allegheny River and 4 miles south of Kittanning, the county seat....

, he worked as a boy on his family's farm. As an adolescent he labored in a brick yard and in the pioneering oil business of Samuel Kier on the Allegheny River

Allegheny River

The Allegheny River is a principal tributary of the Ohio River; it is located in the Eastern United States. The Allegheny River joins with the Monongahela River to form the Ohio River at the "Point" of Point State Park in Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...

. At age 21 Lambing entered St. Michael's Preparatory and Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, was ordained in 1869 by Bishop Michael Domenec

Michael Domenec

Michael Domenec, D.D., C.M. was the second Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the only bishop of the short-lived Diocese of Allegheny.-Background:...

, and was briefly assigned to teach history at St. Francis College, Loretto

Saint Francis University

Saint Francis University is a four-year, coeducational Catholic liberal arts university in Loretto, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1847 and conducted under the tradition of the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular...

. Thereafter, during forty years of Pittsburgh's post-Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, industrial and population boom, he ministered to thousands of the city's Catholic immigrants from Europe. During the Great Railroad Strike of 1877

Great railroad strike of 1877

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 began on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, United States and ended some 45 days later after it was put down by local and state militias, and federal troops.-Economic conditions in the 1870s:...

, he was credited with calming some strikers intent on destroying a freight depot of the Pennsylvania Railroad

Pennsylvania Railroad

The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy", the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....

 in the city's rail yards.

Lambing was among the first academically-trained historians of Western Pennsylvania

Western Pennsylvania

Western Pennsylvania consists of the western third of the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. Pittsburgh is the largest city in the region, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic and cultural center. Erie, Altoona, and Johnstown are its...

 and the first to document the beginnings of the Catholic Church there. Two of his most important contributions were the first English translation, from the French, of the 1749 journal of Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville and the publication of the register of baptisms at Fort Duquesne

Fort Duquesne

Fort Duquesne was a fort established by the French in 1754, at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in what is now downtown Pittsburgh in the state of Pennsylvania....

. He wrote numerous articles for newspapers and magazines on historical and religious subjects, including a majority of two early and significant regional histories: History of Allegheny County and the Standard History of Pittsburgh. He served as president of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania

Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania

The Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania is a cultural organization in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After several attempts during the early and mid-century to establish a historical society, an organization called Old Residents of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania was formed on January 10, 1859...

. Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...

 appointed Lambing a trustee of both the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie School of Technology

Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....

. In 1883 the University of Notre Dame

University of Notre Dame

The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...

 conferred on him the honorary degree of Master of Arts and in 1886 the Doctor of Laws. He died Christmas Eve, 1918, and is buried in the priest’s section at St. Mary Cemetery

St. Mary Cemetery, Pittsburgh

St. Mary Cemetery is a Roman Catholic burial ground located at 45th and Penn Avenues in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. It is adjacent to the city's slightly older and much larger Allegheny Cemetery....

 in the city's Lawrenceville

Lawrenceville (Pittsburgh)

Lawrenceville is one of the largest neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is located northeast of downtown, and like many of Pittsburgh's riverfront neighborhoods, it has an industrial past. Lawrenceville is bordered by the Allegheny River, Polish Hill, Bloomfield, the Strip District and...

 neighborhood. His headstone is in the shape of a large open book.

Books

• The Orphan’s Friend: A Series of Plain Instructions for the Use of Orphans after Leaving the Asylum, and for Persons of the Same Class Living in the World, nonfiction (New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Company, 1875)
• The Sunday School Teacher’s Manual, or, the Art of Teaching Catechism..., nonfiction (New York, Cincinnati [etc.]: Benziger Brothers, 1877.)
• A History of the Catholic Church in the Dioceses of Pittsburgh and Allegheny from Its Establishment to the Present Time, nonfiction (New York, Cincinnati [etc.]: Benziger Brothers, 1880.)
• Masses for the Dead, and the Motive for Having Them Celebrated, nonfiction (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1881.)
• The Baptismal Register of Fort Duquesne, from June, 1754, to Dec. 1756, Translated from the French, with an Introductory Essay and Notes, by Rev. A. A. Lambing, nonfiction (Pittsburgh: Myers, Shinkle & Co., 1885.)
• The Sacramentals of the Holy Catholic Church, nonfiction (New York, Cincinnati [etc.]: Benziger Brothers, 1892.)
• Come, Holy Ghost, or, Edifying and Instructive Selections from Many Writers on Devotion to the Third Person of the Adorable Trinity, nonfiction (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1901.)
• Brief Biographical Sketches of the Deceased Bishops and Priests Who Labored in the Diocese of Pittsburgh: From the Earliest Times to the Present, with an Historical Introduction, nonfiction (Pittsburgh: Republic Bank Note Co., 1914.)
• Expedition of Celoron to the Ohio Country in 1749, nonfiction (Columbus, OH: The F.J. Heer Printing Co., 1921.)

Sources

• Armstrong County, Pa.: Her People, Past and Present. Pages 413-414, J. H. Beers & Co., 1914.
• The Catholic Historical Review. Pages 435-437, Catholic University Press of America, Vol. 1, No. 4, January 1916.
• The Historiography of the American Catholic Church, 1785-1943. Pages 37–39, Ayer Publishing, 1978.
• The Progressive Men of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Pages 70–71, A. W. Bown & Co., 1900.