Inman

mental effusion in a purely didactic vein. Of
slightly greater artistic merit is "The Sudden and
Sharp Doom," a story published in The Gift for
1843 (Philadelphia, 1842), which also included
the first printing of Poe's "Pit and the Pendu-
lum/' In "Early Love and Constancy" (New
York Mirror, Apr. 2, 1831) Inman presents a
sentimental tale, tempered, in the early Knicker-
bocker manner, by elements of burlesque. A
quaint little sketch, in places worthy of Irving
himself, whose style Inman has obviously sought
to imitate, is "The Little Old Man of Coblentz,"
contributed anonymously to The Talisman for
MDCCCXXIX (New York, 1828). Inman also
wrote for an edition of Samuel Maunder's Treas-
ury of History, published in New York in 1845,
a sketch of American history.

In 1833 Inman married Miss Fisher, the sis-
ter of several comedians of that name popular
at the Park Theatre. Although greatly over-
shadowed in reputation by his more accom-
plished brother, Henry Inman, 1801-1846 [#.?/.],
the painter, he yet seems to have been liked by
his contemporaries. He belonged to the "Sketch
Club/' which included among its members
Bryant, Halleck, and Verplanck. "Halleck,"
says J. G. Wilson, "esteemed him highly as a
genial companion and an accomplished littera-
teur."

[Brief sketches of Inman's life are to be found in
E. A. and G. L, Duyckinck, Cyc. of Am. Lit. (ed.
1875), II, 244, the Internal Miscellany (Internal.
Monthly Mag.}, Oct. 1850,and J. G. Wilson,Bryant and
His Friends (1886), pp. 408-09. Facts regarding some
of his editorial connections are included in F. L. Mott,
A Hist, of Am. Magazines, 1741-1850 (1930),]

N.F.A.

INMAN, JOHN HAMILTON (Oct. 6,1844-
Nov. 5,1896), merchant and financier, was born
at Dandridge, Jefferson County, Tenn., the
brother of Samuel Martin Inman [g.v.]. Both
his parents, Shadrach W. and Jane Martin
(Hamilton) Inman, were of Revolutionary stock,
the former of English descent, the latter of north-
of-Ireland ancestry. The boy spent his early life
upon his father's plantation, and in his gen-
eral store. After attending a neighborhood acad-
emy, he refused to go to college and worked for
a year m a bank in Georgia, where he began to
show the financial ability displayed in later life.
From 1862 to 1865 he was in the Confederate
army, though the sentiment of his section of East
Tennessee was strongly Unionist and he was
threatened with physical violence on his dis-
charge from the army. In the fall of 1865 he
went ta New York with only a few dollars, since
Ms father had. been ruined by the war, and se-
in a cotton house. Soon he be-

Inman

came a partner, but in 1870, organized the new
firm of Inman, Swann & Company. He was
one of the organizers of the New York Cotton
Exchange, and until the end of his life was a
prominent figure in the cotton trade of the world.

As he accumulated capital he turned toward
the industrial development of the Southern states.
He was one of the organizers, and long a director,
of the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Com-
pany, later to be absorbed by the United States
Steel Corporation. He was also interested in the
Louisville & Nashville Railroad, in the Central
Railroad & Banking Company of Georgia, and
became influential in the Richmond & Danville
Railroad and in the Richmond & West Point
Terminal Railway & Warehouse Company,
which was organized first as an adjunct to the
Richmond & Danville, but later controlled the
parent corporation and all its leased and sub-
sidiary lines. Inman served as president of both
these corporations, which were later to be the
backbone of the Southern Railway system. He
had interests in various other Southern enter-
prises (though he was a promoter rather than
a builder), and claimed that he had been instru-
mental in the investment of at least $100,000,000
of Northern capital in the South. He was also
a director in various important banks and in-
surance companies in New York, and from its
organization to his death was a member of the
New York Rapid Transit Commission which
was charged with the duty of finding a solution
of the traffic problems of New York City.

The financial depression culminating in the
panic of 1893 precipitated the bankruptcy of most
Southern railroads and seriously crippled him.
His attempts to recoup by speculating in cotton
were disastrous, and his losses led to a nervous
collapse in 1896. He died at a sanitarium at New
Canaan, Conn., to which he had been secretly
removed, and not at a hotel in the Berkshires, as
is stated in most accounts. Inman was a man of
abounding energy, undoubted financial ability,
and considerable personal charm. His enthusi-
astic belief in the possibilities of Southern indus-
trial development had its influence at a time
when most financiers were skeptical, and his at-
tempts to combine Southern railways laid a
foundation upon which stronger hands were later
able to build. He married, in 1870, Margaret
McKinney Coffin of Monroe County, Tenn.

[Material upon Inman's life is fragmentary and is
to be found chiefly in the newspapers and in the reports
of the various enterprises with which he was connected.
The New York papers at the time of his death con-
tamed sketches of him, see especially N. Y. Triune,
Nov. 7, 5896: N. Y. Times, Nov. 6, 1896. See also T.
H. Martin, Atlanta and its Builders (1902), and Knox-
ville Jour.t Nov. 6, 1896.] j^ f__nt

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