Lambert's Point

Lamberts Point is a point of land on the east shore of the Elizabeth River near the downtown area of the independent city of Norfolk in the South Hampton Roads region of eastern Virginia, United States. It includes a large coal exporting facility, a residential area, and a golf course. The area is south of Old Dominion University

Lamberts Point was named for Thomas Lambert, who patented 100 acres (400,000 m²) there on the east side of the bay of the Elizabeth River on June 1, 1635, when the territory was still a part of Elizabeth River Shire in colonial Virginia. Lambert was an ensign in the Lower Norfolk County Militia by 1640 and was later a major in the same outfit. He was later a member of the Assembly at Jamestown for Lower Norfolk County in 1652, and by the time of his death in 1671 he was the proud bearer of the title Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Lambert. Lambert's Point was located in Norfolk County when that county was formed from Lower Norfolk County in 1691.

The Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad (N&P) was built under the oversight of William Mahone, young civil engineer from Southampton County, Virginia who had been educated in the first graduating class of Virginia Military Institute (VMI). A rail link to the west had long been a dream of Norfolk citizens led by Dr. Francis Mallory. Despite delays, financial constraints, and the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1855, by 1858, young Mahone and his N&P workforce had bridged both the Eastern and Southern Branches of the Elizabeth River, deployed a corduroy roadbed across the northern portion of the Great Dismal Swamp and completed the line west to Petersburg. At the Cockade City, connections could be made with a north-south railroad to Richmond or North Carolina, as well as more importantly, the South Side Railroad to Lynchburg which itself connected with the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad (V&T). Eventually, a rail link all the way to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans was thus seen as possible.

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