Col. Henry INMAN Jr. ³⁶⁴³

  General Notes:

INMAN, HENRY (July 30, 1837-Nov. 13, 1899), Union soldier, author, was born in New York City, the son of Henry Inman [q.v.l, a painter, and his wife, Jane Riker (O'Brien) Inman. When Henry was yet a boy his father died and his mother moved to a small farm near Hempstead, L. I. The youth for a time attended the Athenian Academy at Rahway, N. J., and had further instruction from private tutors. At twenty he enlisted in the army, and as a private (later a corporal) in the 9th Infantry served for four years in the Indian disturbances in California and Oregon. On the outbreak of the Civil War he was transferred to the 17th Infantry, Army of the Potomac, becoming a first lieutenant in October 1862. In the Peninsular campaign he served on the staff of Gen. George Sykes, and for gallant conduct at Gaines's Mills, June 27, 1862, was breveted a captain. During the next two years he served in the Quartermaster's Department. At the end of the war he was sent to Kansas, where he distinguished himself in the Indian campaigns, attaining the brevet of lieutenant-colonel in February 1869. On July 24, 1872, he was cashiered from the army.
In 1878 Inman took charge of a newspaper, the Larned Enterprise. In 1882 he became manager of the Kansas News Agency at Topeka and was subsequently employed on various newspapers in the state. His interest in the frontier prompted the writing of a number of sketches of adventure which in 1881 were published in book form under the title Stories of the Old Santa Fé Trail, another collection, In the Van of Empire, followed in 1889. The wide circulation of these sketches, due in part to the printing of a selection of them by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railway Company as an advertisement, induced Inman to plan a larger and more comprehensive work on the subject. With the financial aid of his friend, W. F. Cody (Buffalo Bill), he completed the volume, which was published in November 1897 under the title, The Old Santa Fé Trail, The Story of a Great Highway. It scored an immediate success, bringing him money and fame. During the next year he produced Tales of the Trail, The Ranche on the Oxhide, and A Pioneer from Kentucky, and in collaboration with Cody, The Great Salt Lake Trail. In 1899 he published The Delahoyd's and a compilation of the frontier experiences of the Hon. Charles J. Jones under the title, Buffalo Jones' Forty Years of Adventure.
Inman was married in Portland, Me., Oct. 22, 1862, to Eunice C. Dyer, the daughter of a prominent shipbuilder. In his later years he separated from his family, living in a small hotel in Topeka. He was a man of many eccentricities. He lived frugally but spent money lavishly on a blind boy whom he had met in a hospital. The large royalties received during his last two years were squandered, and at the time of his death he was in debt. His writings, though popular, have little historical value. He died in Topeka.
[F. B. Heitman, Hist. Reg. and Dict. of the U. S. Army (1903); Appletons' Ann. Cyc., 1899; Who's Who in America, 1899-1900; Kansas City Star, Nov. 13, 1899; Topeka Daily Capitol and Kansas City Jour., Nov. 14, 1899.] W.J.G. ³⁶⁴⁵

  Noted events in his life were:

• He appeared on the census on 12 Jun 1880 in Larned, Pawnee Co., Kansas, USA. ³⁶⁴³

Henry married Eunice Churchill DYER, daughter of Joseph Webber DYER and Catherine Fullerton SLATTER, on 22 Oct 1862 in Portland, Cumberland Co., Maine, USA ³⁶³⁹.^,3640 (Eunice Churchill DYER was born on 1 Jan 1842 in Portland, Cumberland Co., Maine, USA,³⁶⁴⁰ died in 1922 in , , Kansas, USA ^3641,3642 and was buried in Old Ellsworth Cemetery, Ellsworth, Ellsworth Co., Kansas, USA ^3641,3642.)