The following material on Philip Lambrecht was provided by Rita Breen, a PhD in History from Massachusetts. Ms. Breen is the great grand-daughter of Anthony Lambrecht, Philip’s cousin. Ms. Breen discovered Det. Lambrecht’s history while researching her great grandfather. She pieced together the following from census records, newspaper accounts, and other records. --- Philip Lambrecht never married and had no children. He was born in Manhattan in January of 1846, one of the 13 children of Anthony and Maria Magdalena Lambrecht. He was raised as a Catholic. His parents were immigrants from Bavaria (Anthony) and France (Maria Magdalena) who arrived in New York in the early 1830s and were citizens by the end of the 1830s. Philip’s father Anthony owned a stage coach line which ran from what was then Manhattanville to lower Manhattan. Philip enlisted in the Union Army in 1861 at the age of 15. He served in C Company of the 9th Infantry Regiment, which was known as Hawkins’ Zouaves until it mustered out in May of 1863. He then re-enlisted serving in two other New York regiments until the end of the Civil War. The New York Times article on his funeral mentions his heroic actions at the Battle of Roanoke. Police Department records would have to establish when he joined the Department, but he was listed as a Policeman in the 1870 census. He was also listed as having given testimony in court cases by 1869. At the time of his death, he was assigned to the 19th Precinct and seems to have been particularly involved with combating gang violence. New York Times articles of the era offer descriptions of the incident which led to his death. This involved an assault upon him when he came to the aid of another Officer during an arrest in the early hours of February 26, 1872. His skull was fractured by a large slab of marble with which he was hit and he died in St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan on March 14, 1872. His funeral was on March 17th and he was buried in Calvary Cemetery in Queens, as described by the New York Times. The man who assaulted him was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. The Grand Army of the Republic, the very powerful organization of Civil War Union veterans, named one of their posts after Philip Lambrecht. He was one of original line of duty deaths placed on the Honor Roll at Police Headquarters in 1912.