John Lamb

John Lamb 1735-1800, American Revolutionary leader, b. New York City. Prior to the Revolution he was a leader of the Sons of Liberty in New York and helped form the New York committee of correspondence to coordinate anti-British activity. With Isaac Sears he led (1775) a mob that seized the New York customhouse and another that captured the British arms at Turtle Bay in Manhattan. Lamb served in the Quebec campaign and in later battles. In 1784, he became collector of customs in New York City. Later he was one of the leaders of the opposition to the U.S. Constitution in New York.

Bibliography: See I. Q. Leake, Memoir of the Life and Times of General John Lamb (1850, repr. 1971).

Lamb, John (1735–1800) Revolutionary War officer, born in New York City. Lamb participated in the Canadian invasion of 1775 and the defense of an army depot in Connecticut; served as commander of artillery at West Point (1779–80) and as surveyor of ordnance (1779–80); and commanded the heaviest bombardment at the siege of Yorktown (1781). He was an early leader in the New York Sons of Liberty and led mobs that unloaded provisions destined for the British troops in Boston, closed New York Harbor, and seized weapons and other military stores.