The early Inmans

 

Submitted by Randy McConnell

April 2006

Randy has generously shared these for publication with the Christian County Mogen Web site.No data may be reproduced or published without permission of the author. Please note that web host to delete names and data of the living altered the manuscript.

 

 

The early Inmans of Christian Co., MO came in three family groups:

-- The children of Ezekiel Inman (1804, TN-1879, Shelby Co., MO) from his first marriage to Sarah "Sally" Sanders, the daughter of Azariah Sanders and Zipporah Richardson. This couple was married in Hardin Co., KY Nov. 18, 1824 and moved to Parke Co., IN where Sally died c. 1834.

Ezekiel distributed the children to his Sanders in-laws and moved to Adams Co., IL where he had two more wives and families. The children, however, came to Greene Co., MO in the 1840s with their grandmother and two uncles, William and Elijah Sanders who settled in the area that became north-central Christian Co. in 1859.

The most prominent among the children were John William Inman/Inmon of Inman's Arch in Stone Co. who married Jayne Payne, the daughter of Archibald Payne and Tinney Jane Hartley of Porter Township; and James Westley Inman of Christian and Greene Cos., who married Sarah Ann Gilmore/Gilmer.

-- The children of the Rev. James William Inman  (1760s-c. 1836, Giles Co., TN) from his second marriage to Martha Caroline Wilson. Only one of those children -- Elkanah Dulaney -- was male, but early Gambles and Wilsons of Christian and Greene Cos. were also descendants.

-- David Alexander Inman (Sept. 15, 1796-Aug. 6, 1892) of Nixa, his wife Elizabeth Carnes and their children who began emigrating to Christian Co. in the 1850s. By legend, Nixa gained its name from his second son, a blacksmith who came to the county before the Civil War.

Some researchers have concluded that James William Inman was the progenitor of all these Inmans -- and they may be correct.

James William Inman, whose bloodlines are murky at best, likely was the son of Lazarus Inman (c. 1730-1781) and Elizabeth White of Augusta Co., VA, but not all of James William's children and grandchildren have been identified. Lazarus was the apparent brother of an older Ezekiel, who settled for a time in Augusta Co., but moved east to Albemarle during the French and Indian War and to Rowan/Burke Cos., NC by Revolutionary times. Ezekiel appears to have died in what became Blount Co., TN before 1800. The children of Ezekiel and James William lived in the same mountainous area of East Tennessee. James William's daughter Louisa Caroline married William Sanders, the brother of Sally Sanders Inman, in a family that was given to cousin and in-law marriages common in Virginia.

David Alexander Inman almost certainly was the son of either James William or his brother David.

Researchers have devoted literally thousands of man-years to firmly tracing the origins of these families, without success.

 

Lazarus Inman and Elizabeth White

 

Lazarus Inman leaps into recorded history in western Virginia in 1760 with no known forebears. He likely was a brother to Ezekiel and Hezekiah Inman, also living nearby in the early 1750s. Hezekiah was cited in Augusta Co., VA records by the mid-1750s, and his dealings brought him in contact with men who later were close neighbors or associates of Lazarus. Ezekiel, too, lived in Augusta during this time, but, more importantly, he named his youngest son Lazarus.

 

These Inmans likely had origins in either greater Philadelphia/New Castle, DE or Baltimore, where they had settled upon their transport from England. Despite their distinctive given names, no references to these Inmans have been found in Maryland or Pennsylvania or elsewhere.

 

The sparse references to Lazarus begin on Feb. 19, 1760 when he witnessed a deed from neighborhood farmer John Hutcheson to Francis Alexander, which for five pounds transferred ownership of 265 acres on Long Meadow near the South River in Augusta Co.⁽⁷⁾ George Hutcheson had received the original grant in 1738 for the land, which lay on or near the site of modern Waynesboro, VA. Joining Lazarus as witness were two other Alexanders, James and John.

 

The picture builds for Lazarus during the 1760s of a quiet tenant farmer in the South River valley, which was dominated by Long Meadow. The other early citations in Augusta Co. court records are:

·       Nov. 20, 1761 - James Hollis, George Wooldridge and Lazarus Inman were appointed jurymen.⁽⁸⁾ His service on the jury likely indicated that Lazarus was a property owner, but no grant or sale has been found.

·       March 15, 1768 - Lazarus Inman was ordered to work on a road with Robert Allen Jr. as overseer.⁽⁹⁾

The records then begin to show a more mature family man when Lazarus was granted 200 acres on the South River adjoining Isaac White and David Henderson on Nov. 11, 1769.⁽¹⁰⁾ His presence is affirmed there in a lawsuit on a 1772 grant, involving the widow of Robert Allen Jr., that shows Lazarus' land came to a corner with the property of Thomas Walker, John Campbell and William Teas, whose family had owned the Waynesboro town site since 1755. Dr. Thomas Walker, one of the most famous frontiersmen in southwest VA, was reputedly the first English settler to visit Kentucky. On Sept. 29, 1779, Lazarus paid off a debt to Mary Reid Teas, the widow of William Teas,⁽¹¹⁾ and the 1779 tax lists show Lazarus had gone to Rockbridge Co.,⁽¹²⁾ an adjoining county created from Augusta and Botetourt Cos., the previous year; the citation may simply mean his farm lay in the new county.

The books on Lazarus close when the Augusta Co. Court minutes show that a lawsuit was dismissed May 24, 1782 because he had died.⁽¹³⁾ Rockbridge Co. records show no mention of Lazarus or any other Inman through the year 1800, including possible guardianship papers on his minor children.

The direct records provide no hint of a wife or family for this farmer. But probably in the early or mid-1760s, Lazarus married Elizabeth White (1740s), daughter of his neighbors, Isaac White and wife Jane Campbell, and the granddaughter of James (1682-1754) and Margaret Campbell. 

Lazarus and Elizabeth appear to have had at least six sons: David (b. 1760s-1799), James William (1760s-1830s), Henry, John (1778-August 7, 1838), Joseph (1780-1855) and Isaac (1781-1841). One possible daughter has surfaced: Rebecca (aka Hinman), who married James Watts Nov. 2, 1792 in Augusta Co. These relationships are pieced together through wills, probate papers, tax lists and shards of other information that fail to document the kinships conclusively. But circumstantial evidence supports the marriage of Elizabeth White to Lazarus:

·       Isaac White bought or was granted property in the same Long Meadow-South River area in 1769, and in 1770 he added property adjoining Lazarus Inman.

·       Isaac White served in Capt. Thompson's Augusta Co. militia comp; Lazarus served in the same company from the beginning of the Revolution to c. 1781.

·       Isaac White's will in 1774 notes that daughter Elizabeth is married, but fails to mention her married name.

·       The 1753 will of James Campbell cites granddaughter Elizabeth White as a "child," placing her marriage and the birth of any children likely no earlier than c. 1760. All the children ascribed to Lazarus were born from the 1760s through 1781.

·       Jane Campbell White was the sister of John Campbell, who is listed as the cornering neighbor of Lazarus Inman in 1772.

·       The names of Lazarus' children followed the pattern of the Whites: David, James William , Henry (an exception), John, Joseph and Isaac among the sons and Rebecca among the possible daughters. Augusta Co. Land Commission records in 1780 show Isaac White was the son of John White, then dead, and his apparent brothers were David, John, William and perhaps Joseph (who moved from Augusta to the French Broad River of TN in 1790). According to Isaac's will, he had sons David, James, Isaac and Gordon (the youngest, b. 1761). David married Rebecca Robertson in the 1770s.

The data suggests an abrupt switch in the family naming pattern here: Lazarus, estranged at least by distance from elder brothers Ezekiel and Hezekiah, was influenced by his wife to adopt more conventional names than the obscure Old Testament monikers chosen by his parents. These names (James, John, Joseph and, to lesser but significant extents, David, William and Isaac) persisted in these families for generations. Lazarus' son Isaac, who moved eventually to Madison Co., AL, where he died, was said to be named Isaac White Inman.

Tax, land and census rolls in Augusta and Rockbridge Cos. provide few clues to the fate of Lazarus' family after his death; in fact, they are never mentioned again, with two exceptions:

·       The rolls of VA militia in the Revolutionary War, besides Lazarus in Capt. Thompson's company, list David and William Inman in Capt. Finley's company from Augusta Co. William was listed as absent in a 1780 general court martial of the county militia.

·       The 1787 tax list/census of Augusta Co. found William Inman as the only adult man of that surname in the county; he was living in a household with no other males over age 16, one horse and a cow, but no slaves. This household could have provided a home for very young male Inmans, such as James, Joseph and Isaac, or no other Inmans at all except for females. (This man apparently was James William Inman, second son of Lazarus.) 

Jane Campbell White was still living in 1791, when final transactions took place to sell her late husband Isaac's farm to her nephew, Lt. (and county Sheriff) James Steele. The White sons all married in Augusta Co., but moved to Blount Co., TN where several Inmans settled.

 

The last legal reference to Elizabeth White Inman apparently came in May 1790 in Greene Co., TN (then North Carolina) when she won a legal judgment of 45 shillings plus costs against Benjamin Davis.

Children of Lazarus and Elizabeth White Inman

Lazarus and Elizabeth White Inman had six known sons:

n      David Inman (1760s, Augusta Co., VA-1801, Grainger Co., TN)

n    James William Inman (1760s, Augusta Co., VA-c. 1836, Giles Co., TN)

n    John Inman (1778, Rockbridge Co., VA-Aug. 7, 1838, Giles Co., TN)

n    Joseph Jasper Inman (1780, Rockbridge Co., VA-1855, Giles Co., TN)

n    Isaac White Inman (1781, Rockbridge Co., VA-1841, Morgan Co., AL)

n    Henry Inman

David Inman (c. 1760, Augusta Co., VA-1799, Grainger Co., TN)

David appears to have been born in the early 1760s, the eldest child of Lazarus and Elizabeth. After his father's death, David left VA, based on 1787 tax records.

Little trail exists for David before or after his Revolutionary War service in Augusta Co., whose records contain NO mention of him. Some early Inman researchers said David appears after the Revolution in the records of St. Luke's Parish, which included Surry and Rowan Cos., NC, and he married the daughter of Hugh (or Jesse) Jenkins. However, Jenkins' will was witnessed by a John Inman, and no other connection has been found.

In 1792, David is found in Greene Co., TN on the tax list of Capt. McFarland. On May 20, 1793, David was still living in Greene Co., where he filed suit against his cousin, Daniel, son of Shadrach Inman. The jury found for Daniel.

On Oct. 10, 1796, David was elected and commissioned an ensign in the militia of Jefferson Co., TN, the home of his cousin Abednego, with brother James William as the unit's captain. Virtually all records on David thereafter involve his dealings in the civil court system as a plaintiff, defendant or commonly juror in Grainger Co., TN.

The available data suggests that David moved to Jefferson and then Grainger Co., TN to help his brothers, James, William and Joseph, work at a family saltpetre mine and/or mill.⁽¹⁴⁾ Later TN land survey records show an Inman family operated a mill on Inman's Mill Creek in Grainger Co.⁽¹⁵⁾; similar records show an Inman family mined a saltpetre mine/cave in modern Claiborne Co., TN. In 1798 brother John was asked to pay debts in saltpeter.

This largely undocumented life ended by May 21, 1801 in Grainger Co., TN when his brothers "William, Henry, Isaac, John or Joseph" are asked to step forward and tell why James "Cralley," a creditor, should not have control of the estate of David. David last appeared alive in the records on May 20, 1800 when he served as a juror.  This James Crowley (1763-1840),  a native Virginian who later died in Excelsior Springs, MO, had married Mary McClain and settled in the area.

Objections may have been raised but not recorded because Grainger Sheriff John Lea was appointed administrator of the estate. No further citations have been found until 1803, when Josiah Clark, the brother or father of David's sister-in-law and perhaps a brother-in-law himself, received from the estate on Jan. 1. Clark owned a gunpowder mill on Gap Creek, Carter Co., where John and James William Inman owned land in 1809. This gunpowder connection fits well with the likelihood that the Inmans were involved with a saltpeter mine in Grainger Co.

On Feb. 23, Major Lea, a county court judge, was appointed administrator of David’s estate. The inventory found that David had one slave named Jesse, 30 hogs and a grinding stone, which may have been part of the mill apparatus. The probate appeared likely to end on Nov. 9, 1803 when Isaac Inman verified the estate's accounts.

Nevertheless, the estate continued with the Leas' involvement. In November, the court recorded a bill of sale for a slave named George from Joseph Inman to his brother Isaac. Yet in 1805, John Lea -- David's administrator yet again -- recorded the sale of slave George to John Keene.

Many researchers have interpreted the Inmans who were asked to step forward as the sons of David. But considering his probable age and their known dates of birth, David was their older brother. He could have seemed like a father, however, especially to John, Joseph and Isaac, who were mere toddlers when father Lazarus Inman died.

The children of David, who are not named in the estate settlement, have not been traced, but they likely include:

n      Lazarus (1780s), who married Agnes Manuel in Greene Co., TN on March 3, 1814 at about age 30; they had three sons and five daughters, all under age 15, by 1830. The migration of the Augusta Co. White uncles to Blount Co. suggests strongly that Lazarus had been raised by them.  Agnes' father Henry had close ties to Elizabeth Crowley, who was the widow of James Dulaney/Delaney.

n      The Blount Co. census records suggest he had a brother or other relative, William (b.c. 1800) who lived next door and married Mary Weir/Wear there in 1823.

n      Rachel who married Solomon Webb in Grainger Co. The couple is found in Maury Co., TN in 1830. Solomon was born in the 1770s, Rachel in the 1780s. No records have been found documenting this marriage, which was asserted by an Oklahoma Inman descendant.

n      Wife of Josiah Clark of Carter Co., who received of David's estate.   Although Josiah was the same age or older than David, it is possible that he married one of David's daughters or, more likely, sisters. Josiah may have been paid simply for supplies for the mine, the expenses of caring for David's children and widow or tending to the estate.

n   David Alexander, (September 25, 1796, VA-Aug. 6, 1892, Christian Co., MO), who raised a family in Monroe and Loudon Cos., TN before the entire brood moved to Christian Co. between the 1850s and 1880s. David's contention that he was born in VA has complicated placing him in the Inman family structure. 

Henry Inman

Little record has been found of this son of Lazarus except for tax-roll mentions in Williamson Co., TN in 1810 and 1815. He had moved to Williamson Co. by Nov. 20, 1809, when he is cited in the buyers at the estate sale of William Hunnel.  The Inman settlement in Hickman Co. was near the Williamson Co. line, and his brother Joseph Inman signed the marriage papers of Samuel Faught in Williamson Co. in 1810. 

Major Joseph Jasper (?) Inman (1780-1855)

Left fatherless as a toddler in Augusta Co., VA, young Joseph Inman was always tied to his brother, James William, who may have raised him. The two moved together to TN, where they appear on the 1799 tax rolls of Grainger Co.; they apparently were mining saltpetre from a local cave for sale to ammunitions makers. They also likely were joined by brother David in helping run a mill in Grainger Co. on Inman's Mill Creek that cousin Abednego may have owned.

In 1799, Joseph was shown paying taxes on 133 acres in Grainger Co., TN that may have been jointly held with older brothers David and James William, who is shown paying poll tax there that year. (David died without real property in his probate.) Jointly held land, formed into a family compound, was a tradition that the Inman family followed until well into the 1900s in Missouri.

Around 1807, Joseph moved with James William to Hickman Co., TN, likely in connection with the wagon train of Adam Wilson, a long-time neighbor of the Inmans. Wilson in 1806 became the first permanent white settler of Hickman (then-Dickson) Co., TN, and his son William and grandson James became early leaders in the sparsely populated area.

The new county was established in January 1808, and in May, Joseph was elected second major in the new Hickman Co. militia, serving under Capt. John Holland and first Maj. Joseph Wilson, another son of Adam. The Hickman Co. records burned during the Civil War, and orally based histories of the county contain no other mention of Joseph.

Joseph appears as bondsman for the marriage of Samuel Faught, who had lived in Hickman and Warren Cos., and Nancy Dean in neighboring Williamson Co., TN in 1810. Joseph who was known as "Major Inman" his entire later life may not have lived in Williamson, because the families are believed to have resided near the Hickman-Williamson county line. Joseph's brother Henry appears in Williamson in 1810 and 1815 tax records.

Joseph's 1852 land bounty application shows he was living in Hickman Co. when he enlisted at Fayetteville, Lincoln Co., TN on Sept. 20, 1813 and became 2nd major in the 2nd Regiment of the West TN militia. Joseph was discharged April 20, 1814 after his service in the Creek War or War of 1812. He served under Col. Levi Hammonds and Capt. Alex Lowry. According to his military records, Joseph also fought in the Seminole War of 1817 and 1818.

The existing TN censuses of 1820 show no traces of Joseph, even though Hickman Co.'s list has been preserved. If the brothers had moved back to eastern Tennessee -- which James William did -- they do not appear because those censuses were destroyed.  But on Sept. 10, 1827, both James William and Joseph received 25-acre state grants in Giles Co., TN, where they appear in the 1830 census.

Many researchers concluded Joseph had two wives, but no documentation has been provided for the first. The 1850 census shows him living with wife 'Fanney' or Francis (per her gravestone), b. 1791/2, TN, and the dates match the figures for Joseph's wife in the 1830 census. Jymie Carol Ford Inman of Kerens, TX says this woman was Frances Chapman, a member of a well-established Giles Co. family who had settled there by 1820.⁽³⁹⁾

In 1850, Joseph and Fanny lived almost next door to James Chapman, b. 1780, TN, and the later Inmans had numerous dealings with Benjamin and Stanford Chapman of Ozark, MO, who had emigrated to Christian Co. from Middle Tennessee.

Fanny passed away on Jan. 2, 1855, and she is buried in Old Salem Cemetery on Dry Creek Road south of Campbellsville, TN. The cemetery was co-located with the now-destroyed Old Salem Methodist Church, a denomination that Inmans embraced after the great revival of 1800-1804 on the frontier.

Joseph's death followed shortly that year after he had written perhaps the first true will of this Inman line. He bequeathed his entire estate in 1855 to a daughter and three sons of his late nephew James C. Inman, James William's son who died September 11, 1844 amid the black tongue epidemic that swept Middle TN. After James C.'s early death, his family likely was taken in by Joseph and Fanny, both of whom were fondly remembered in dozens of namesake Inman offspring.

Joseph gave Susan Inman (Mrs. Porter) McAllister the land where she and her husband were living "and control of it without the husband's approval." Her little brother received $200. But the bulk of the estate "including a sizable number of slaves" went to their brothers, Joseph C. and John C., who also became executors of the estate.

Joseph's will shows that he cared deeply about the institution of slavery and the care of his slaves: "And it is my earnest wish and desire that my slaves who have always been dutiful and obedient should be kept together, and well fed & clothed, and in every respect well treated. And if either one of my two great nephews Joseph C. and John C. desire or be compelled to sell any of the slaves...that they will permit her or him or them to select & choose their homes and masters. And if either of them should die without selling or disposing of the...that then they so arrange it by their last will and testament that said slaves be sold, allowing them the privilege of selecting their masters or be kept together and not hired out...My great wish & anxiety being to secure to them kind and good treatment."

The will soon became one of the great legal cases on this institution in antebellum Tennessee history. On Sept. 13, 1855, John C. and the Rev. Joseph C. Inman freed their great-uncle's slave Elias, and the emancipation papers were filed in the Giles Co. register's office. Joseph C. then tried to annul the agreement. John C. died in 1858, but Joseph pursued the case as John C.'s co-executor because he was in serious financial straits - 'insolvent,' according to another lawsuit. In 1859, Elias himself sued by an unlikely 'next friend,' Quarles T. Mayfield, a Giles Co. slave trader and the other co-executor of John C.'s will and estate. Attorneys Thomas M. Jones and Calvin Clark of Pulaski represented Elias, and the local court ruled that he should be shipped to the west coast of Africa. The case went to the Tennessee Supreme Court, but its disposition couldn’t be found in a 2003 visit to the state archives.

Isaac White (?) Inman (1781-1841)

Likely the last of Lazarus and Elizabeth White Inman's children, Isaac may have been born after Lazarus' death - or at least after the death of grandfather Isaac White, who died in 1781.

Little is known about this man until he signs the verification of brother David's estate settlement in 1803 in Grainger Co., TN. In 1806 he signed a power of attorney, likely authorizing sale of his lands in Grainger Co., and he next is found in Smith Co., TN, on Aug. 6, 1806, petitioning with other residents for the formation of a new county called Warren centered on the seat of McMinnville, TN. The petition is remarkable for the number of Campbells and Rodgers/Rogers families that appears; Isaac's grandmother was a Campbell, and his aunt married Robert Rogers in Augusta Co., VA.

Also on the petition were John and Samuel Faught, the father and brother of Wiley Blount Faught Sr. who settled near Huntsville, AL and then Giles Co., TN before his family migrated to Christian Co., MO.

By 1817, Isaac White Inman had settled outside Huntsville, AL, near his cousins, John Ritchie and Ezekiel Inman, in Morgan Co. In 1817, he married in Morgan Co., AL to Martha Frost.

Isaac's will, dated 1841, notes his wife Martha and children Lucinda (Fuller), Green L. (likely Lazarus), James H. and Sarah (Mitchell). The naming pattern suggests that Isaac, too, was raised by James William after Lazarus' early death.

John Inman (1778-Aug. 7, 1838)

John Inman, the son of Lazarus Inman and Elizabeth White, married Susannah Clark on Nov. 6/8, 1796 in Dandridge, Jefferson Co., TN, the hometown of his cousin, Abednego Inman. He is believed to have married again because her name is rarely passed down in the family. Susannah is never mentioned again in official records.

 

The Inmans of Christian Co. who descended from Elkanah are descended from both James William and this man. John Sr. was the grandfather of Elkanah's wife, Sarah Jane Moore.

The first legal reference to John is found in land records of Carter Co., TN; when the area was part of Washington Co. John served as a chain carrier on the 1794 survey of a land grant to James Edens on Gap Creek. After his marriage in Jefferson Co., John is next mentioned in Grainger Co., where he was summoned by the court in his brother David's estate. He lived in the early 1800s in Carter Co., TN along Gap Creek.

Jane, his eldest daughter, was married in Carter Co. in 1814. There, in 1816, John Inman signed land papers as a witness for James Edens, who had owned land adjoining John's brother James (William) Inman in 1810 on Gap Creek. Later in 1816, John moved to Madison Co., AL, where he is listed in the territorial census.

Around 1820, John moved to Morgan Co., AL, across the river from his brother Isaac and two cousins who were sons of Abednego Inman of east TN: cotton merchant John Ritchie Inman and Ezekiel Inman. Most of the children married in Morgan Co. in the early 1820s, and Susannah Clark Inman probably died,⁽³²⁾ leaving John Inman Sr. with a lone son, Isaac, in the home in 1830 in Morgan Co.

Around 1836, with sons David and Isaac, John rejoined brothers James William and Joseph in Giles Co. John died there on Aug. 7, 1838, and he is buried in Campbellsville Cemetery. Virtually nothing is known of Susannah Clark Inman, whose burial site has not been located.

Children of John Inman Sr.

Jane Inman Moore (c. 1797-1820s)

Jane likely was named for her great-grandmother, Jane Campbell White, who was still alive in 1791 and likely played an active role in raising John Sr., who was left fatherless at age 3 or 4.

Jane Inman married James B. Moore (1794, NC) in Carter Co., TN on Feb. 16, 1814 with his father Daniel Moore as surety. Daniel Moore Sr. owned land on Gap Creek beside John and James (William) Inman, according to an 1810 Carter Co. deed.

The Moores had moved from NC to Carter Co. between 1796 and 1798. James Moore was the only child of Daniel Moore and Mary Brown of Carter/Washington/Greene Cos., TN, but after her death in 1798, Daniel remarried to Rebecca Broyles, daughter of Adam and Elizabeth Speck Broyles, on March 27, 1799 in Greene Co., TN.  Through Daniel’s second marriage, James Moore had nine half-siblings: Stephen, Wilson, Isaac, Daniel Jr., Violet, Sarah (Sadie), Barsheba, Moses and Mary, who all remained in northeast Tennessee.

Among the children of James and Jane Inman Moore were: Andrew Jackson (1815);  Frances "Fanny" (Nov. 20, 1816-April 2, 1838); and Sarah (1819-May 1894).

Andrew married his cousin Martha Inman (Nov. 1, 1820-July 1, 1840), the daughter of James Campbell Inman and wife Sarah and granddaughter of James William Inman; she is buried at Campbellsville Cemetery in Giles Co., TN. Andrew and Martha had a son William Tipton, who married cousin Sarah Isabelle Gilmore, daughter of the Rev. Nathaniel Riley Gilmore and Sarah Inman, the sister of Andrew; they also had a daughter Sarah Frances who married James Burch. After Martha's early death, Andrew married again to a woman named Sarah, had children Mary and John and moved to Arkansas. His son William Tipton moved back to Lawrence Co., TN and died there.

Frances, who died single, is buried beside her grandfather, John Inman Sr., at Campbellsville Cemetery. 

Sarah Jane Moore (1819, TN-May 1894, Christian Co., MO) married her cousin Elkanah D. Inman, son of James William, in the 1830s in Giles Co. This couple moved to Christian Co., MO, but none of the Moores is known to have followed. (See separate section on Sarah Moore, who married Elkanah Dulaney Inman.)

A gap in the children suggests that Jane died in the 1820s in Morgan Co., AL. although the family likely lived for a period in Blount Co., TN. James then remarried to a woman unknown and had a son in the early 1830s, James Jr. (1833), daughter (1830/35) and son John S. or L. (1838/39). James resettled in Giles Co. by 1836 where the second wife died, probably in childbirth with son John S.

James B. married a third time to Nancy Lane Jan. 8, 1840 in Giles Co., and they had at least six more children: William J. (1841), Carson C. (1842), Nathaniel (1844), George W. (1846), Robin (1848) and Mary E. (1850). James Moore (Jr.), 17, was living with John W. and Hannah Simmerly Inman in 1850. He married Sarah Jane Long Dec. 19, 1855 before JP Thomas H. Noblitt.

James B. and Nancy Lane Moore are not found in TN, AR or MO in 1860.

Lazarus C. Inman (1797/8-1860s)

The paternity of Lazarus C. is unclear, although he was the son of John or James William Inman.

 

Lazarus C. (possibly Campbell) Inman, born in Grainger Co., according to Oregon sources, married Susannah Stover, daughter of Daniel Stover Jr. (b. 1770s) and Phoebe Ward of Carter Co., TN and relative of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, on Feb. 18, 1823 in Carter Co., TN before JP John Williams. Lazarus' name was recorded as Ingram in marriage records, but correctly in later legal documents.  The Stovers, too, had close ties to the Boone family in Pennsylvania and had roots in Augusta Co., VA.

Immediately after their marriage, Lazarus C. and Susan moved to Indiana, where they had four children including twins, and then moved back to Carter Co., TN, by the 1830 census, when he was living with or next door to his cousin Sarah (Mrs. Philemon) Lacey. The move to Indiana may have coincided with Stover family relocations, including those of the Lincolns to the KY-IL-IN triangle .

The 1836 Giles Co. tax lists indicate Lazarus moved there on the way to Madison Co., AL by 1840. He became or already had been close to Abednego Inman's son John Ritchie Inman and his children, and Lazarus C. moved to east-central MO in 1843 with John Ritchie's sons James Madison Inman, John W. Inman, Joel Cowan Inman and their sisters, Elizabeth W. Inman (Mrs. Joseph P.) Woodruff, Jane Inman (Mrs. George B.) Woodruff and Caroline Matilda Inman (Mrs. Benjamin) Woodruff. The Woodruffs settled in extreme southwest Franklin Co., MO while Lazarus and Susan went to Bourbeuse Township, Gasconade Co., MO nearby. Lazarus and Susan's eldest child, Elizabeth (1824, IN), however, went to Franklin County for her marriage license.

(The grandson of George B. and Jane Inman Woodruff, John Woodruff, became attorney for the Frisco Railroad, a land developer and one of the wealthiest men of 20th century Springfield, MO, developing the Hickory Hills Country Club and owning half of the spa village of Siloam Springs, AR.)

The 1850 census shows Lazarus and Susan living with Isaac (1827, IN), David W. (1830, IN), Teresa (1830, IN), Thomas (1845, MO) and L., a male (1850, MO), next door to daughter Elizabeth and her husband, Milton M. Childers, who had two small sons and a daughter. 

At least Lazarus Inman, Joel C. Inman, Benjamin Woodruff and their families headed out on the Oregon Trail in 1852 and 1853. Benjamin died en route, although the family record says he died in the Colorado Gold Rush. Lazarus arrived in Oregon in September 1852 and claimed land there on June 22, 1853. He appears to have died by 1863 when son Isaac S. sold part of the claim.  .

David H. (c. 1800-1850)

David, possibly David Henry, married Martha Alexander (1805-1876) on July 18, 1822 in Morgan Co., AL. The name David Henry would have memorialized John Sr.'s two older brothers. Martha was the daughter of Revolutionary War veteran Jeremiah Alexander (July 4, 1763-Jan. 26, 1847), originally of Maryland, and wife Agnes McGaughey.

In the mid-1830s, David came to Giles Co. with his father, John, and remained there in 1840 with his family of six sons and three daughters as well as brother Isaac P.

David and his eldest son Alexander appear to have died at the same time, in an accident or epidemic, in late 1850. Both their probates were filed in January 1851 in Lawrence Co., TN, which borders Giles.

David H's wife Martha was still living, in Lawrence Co., TN, in 1860 with a possible daughter.

Among the children of David H. and Martha Alexander Inman:

n      Alexander (1820/25-late 1850) married Martha Ann ? (1824) and had four children: James T. (1845), Martha E. (1847), William (1850) and Sarah (1851). A fifth child, Mary (1852/3), is found in Martha Ann's household in 1860, probably the daughter of John C. and Sarah C. Inman, who died in 1857 and 1852, respectively, and are buried in Campbellsville Cemetery.

n      Joseph (speculative), who may have married Elizabeth (1831) and had one son Joseph J. (1856-1936) who married Mary Elizabeth ? and is buried at Choate's Creek Cemetery, Giles Co. Elizabeth is shown as a widow in 1860.

n      John C. (1827-1857) married Mary A. Lyles on March 9, 1844

n      James H.L. married Sarah J. Randolph Sept. 6, 1854 in Lawrence Co.

n      Louisa J. (possible) married Vines H. Cross on Oct. 31, 1850 in Lawrence Co.

n      Jeremiah M. (Milton?) (1836) married, first M.D.L. Redding in February 1856 and then Ruthinda J. Liles/Lyles (1838) on March 25, 1859, and they had one child by 1860, William David, born that year.

n      David L. (1840) married Mary M. Howard on Aug. 17, 1858 in Lawrence Co., and they had one daughter by 1860: Martha (1859). David L. was living next door to his mother Martha in Giles in 1860.

n      Two daughters, unknown, besides Louisa J. Probably one was Margaret M. who married James Randolph, probable brother of Sarah, on July 22, 1853 in Lawrence Co.

Isaac P. Inman (Jan. 3, 1803-July 24, 1873)

Isaac P., whose father is confirmed by a family Bible, was living with father John in Morgan Co. in mid-1830, but on Sept. 12, he married Nancy Jane Hunter Faught (Sept. 25, 1809, AL-Sept. 28, 1892) , the daughter of John Harrison Faught and Nancy Marillo Menasco and sister of Wiley Blount Faught Sr. of Alabama and Giles Co.

Isaac's middle name likely was Porter, possibly the surname of John's second wife.

Isaac's family was extremely well educated. Children Calvin W. and Martha M. were teachers at the old Ozark, MO high school, which was the leading secondary school in the frontier Ozarks and his peripatetic nature suggests he, too, was a teacher in the early days or perhaps a preacher and merchant. After moving to Giles Co. with his father in the mid-1830s, Isaac farmed a small acreage beside his brother Andrew and cousin Elkanah south of Campbellsville, TN. Isaac was a Giles Co. resident in October 1838 when mail was waiting for him at Pulaski.⁽³⁴⁾ Isaac and Andrew likely took over their father's holdings.

Isaac, though, was found in Weakley Co. of West TN in the 1850 census, where Andrew had been among the early pioneers.

He likely moved back to Giles or otherwise made contact with the family, joining the Inmans and Faughts on a late 1852 move to Christian Co., MO. By 1855, he was a merchant on the town square of the "old village" of Ozark, but he appears to have lost his town property in a legal dispute over delinquent taxes or bad debts.

He had a sizable farm, however, about five miles west of Ozark, near the current city of Nixa and the tobacco farm of cousin Elkanah Inman and his wife, also Isaac's niece, Sarah Moore.

Before 1870, Isaac, his family and many of the Faughts moved to the Denton, TX area, where Isaac settled at Pilot Point. He died there and is buried at its Skinner Cemetery with his wife.

Nancy and Isaac had seven children:

n      John (Nov. 13, 1831, AL-Feb. 5, 1848, Giles Co., d.s.p.),

n      Calvin W. (Feb. 3, 1833, AL, d.s.p.), who taught school in Ozark when the family was living in Christian Co., MO. Calvin is shown as "Carrollton" Inman, boarding with his sister Martha in Denton, TX in 1900.

n      Martha M. (Dec. 10, 1836, Giles Co., TN-Dec. 20, 1912) who married Judge Joseph A. Carroll Jr. (Nov. 28, 1832, Pike Co., MO).⁽³⁵⁾ He lived in Louisiana, MO until September 1853 when he headed for Tehuacano Springs, Limestone Co., TX, and hired himself out to a settler to make rails for a living. Carroll removed to Barnard's trading house on the Brazos, and in August 1854 he was appointed deputy surveyor of Denton land district, a huge frontier area. In 1857, after an examination, he was admitted to the bar in the district court at Gainesville. He laid out the town of Denton, was appointed commissioner by the county court to sell lots and practiced law until 1861. He married first to Celia J. Burrows, an orphan, on March 18, 1858. They had two children who survived infancy: Secesia and Sidney Johnston, who attended now-Texas A&M. Carroll enrolled in the Texas Confederate forces, in Welsh's Co., and became a lieutenant in a unit fighting in the Indian Territory, at Bird Creek, Round Mountain and Chustenallah. He became adjutant general at the battles of Bird Creek and Elk Horn. In fall 1862 he was elected major of De Morse's 29th TX Cavalry. He was discharged at Hempstead, TX in June 1865 and resumed the practice of law. His wife died in early May 1869. According to The Encyclopedia of the New West,⁽³⁶⁾ Carroll then married "Martha Inmon, daughter of Isaac Inmon, an excellent man, who had been one of the first settlers of Obion Co., TN,⁽³⁷⁾ since deceased, but his widow resides with Judge Carroll." In February 1876, Maj. Carroll was elected judge of the district and served until Jan. 1, 1881. He declined re-election and entered the banking business in Denton. Judge Carroll died by 1900, but Martha continued living on Oak Street.

n      Sarah Finney/Finley (Sept. 19, 1838-1920, m. James Flow).

n      Joseph Martin (April 23, 1841-Oct. 4, 1925, m. Delia Elmore).

n      Samuel (Sept. 24, 1842, probably d.s.p.).

n      Isaac Daniel (Jan. 9, 1851-March 27, 1939). An Isaac "S." Inman, probably Isaac D., from Christian Co., completed a late tour of Civil War duty from Sept. 25 to Nov. 14, 1864, chasing rebels in Ozark Co., under Capt. Stephen Sink of Nixa. Young teenagers, however, often lied about their ages and served in latter stages of the war when manpower in these depopulated counties was almost non-existent. Isaac Daniel married Malinda L. Montgomery, the daughter of Jefferson C. Montgomery and Mary Angeline Jones⁽³⁸⁾ Jan. 16, 1879 in Bloomfield, Cooke Co., TX. They are buried at Walling Cemetery in Denton Co., TX, and had five children: Otis J. (April 13, 1880-April 11, 1958, m. Phoebe Bates, 1913); Homer Edward (Aug. 24, 1882-Dec. 18, 1934, m. Eva Walker, 1911); Ethel (July 8, 1885-Nov. 16, 1962, d.s.p.); James Chandler (Sept. 27, 1887-Dec. 8, 1934, m. Jessie South, 1917); and Earl (Jan. 15, 1889-Dec. 25, 1974, m. Myrtle Flowers).

Andrew (1805-1872)

Andrew's paternity has not been definitely established, but signs point to John because of Andrew's close ties with Isaac P. Inman and old stories that he was a cousin to the sons of James William.

On the other hand, Andrew and his wife named his second daughter Martha, which by frontier tradition would have honored the husband's mother. James and Martha were names commonly given by Andrew's children. His oldest child, Mary Jane, named her first two children James William and Martha Caroline. (Another child was named Erasmus Wilson.)

He first appears as an adult, signing survey documents for Samuel Faught with apparent brother Isaac Inman on Feb. 29, 1827 in Giles. He had an independent streak, which took him that year to Weakley Co. of West TN among its first settlers, apparently with his first wife’s family.

By 1840, he returned to Giles Co., where he farmed on his land next to Elkanah and Isaac P., who then moved to Weakley Co.

Andrew first married, before 1829, to Margaret Perry or Peery; her parents are unknown, but Perrys were living in Pulaski by 1819 and owned a mercantile business there. The couple had at least eight children, all born in TN, before they, too, moved to southwest Missouri in the great migration of late 1852.

True to his independent streak, however, Andrew moved farther west than his brother Isaac, cousin Elkanah and nephew James C., settling in Lawrence Co., MO near Verona. At the time, a road ran from Springfield through Porter Township, Christian Co. to the site of modern Mt. Vernon in Lawrence Co.

Margaret died on May 24, 1858, and she was buried in Lee Cemetery, Verona. Andrew soon remarried to a widow, Mary Cooper Owens, and they had three more children before Andrew died in 1872. Mary then moved to Barry Co. by 1880, where she lived with her three children in King's Prairie Township.

Andrew is buried beside his first wife while Mary Cooper Inman (1821) is interred at Goss Cemetery near Phelps and Mt. Vernon, MO.

Among the children of Andrew by Margaret Perry:

n      Mary Jane (June 1829-March 1905) married Robert Hillhouse of Lawrence Co., TN in 1847.  Robert and Mary Jane lived on Spring River near Verona. They had 13 children: James William (Sept. 18, 1848-Feb. 21, 1940, m. Nancy Adeline Maxwell), Martha Caroline (Feb. 18, 1850-Jan. 17, 1947, m. James Gibson, Thomas Yardell), George Andrew (May 13, 1851-April 7, 1942, m. Mary Flow, Martha Kirby), Margaret Elizabeth (Feb. 4, 1853-March 13, 1934, m. James Willis Sutton), John L. (Nov. 1, 1856-Jan. 28, 1863), infant (d. November 1857), Thomas Jefferson (Nov. 2, 1858-Jan. 19, 1934, m. Susan Isabell Turner), infant (d. 1860 at birth), Erasmus Wilson (Dec. 8, 1861-May 25,1 944, m. Mary Jane White), Nancy Ann (Nov. 21, 1964-April 8, 1953, m. William Lewis Allen), Mary Jane (April 4, 1867-Aug. 31, 1950, m. Benton Roscoe Fenton), Ollie May (June 19, 1869-?, m. Ira Askins) and Robert Clinton (Nov. 7, 1871-July 9, 1959, m. Minnie Bell Pharris).

n      Martha C. (1832-1916) married Ottawa Nance in 1853 in Lawrence Co., MO. She is buried in Garrison Cemetery, Christian Co., MO. The couple had nine children: Mary Jane m. William "Billy" Else, Sarah m. Robert Nance, Amelia m. John Roller, Martha m. John Hollingsworth, Margaret m. George Vanlandingham, John William m. Jane Goad, George (d.s.p.), Jim (1870-1943, m. Bessie Stephens) and an infant.

n      Turzy Ann (1834-1861) married James Dobbins Springer in 1856, and they lived near Aurora, Lawrence Co., MO. She is buried in Lee Cemetery. The couple had three children: Robert Hillhouse (1856-d. in TX, m. Elvira Morris), Margaret Jane (1859-1924, m. John McDonald) and James Bowie (1861-d. in CA, m. Bell Roswell).

n      Dorcas Amanda (1836-d. in Lincoln, AR) married Steve Thomas and had two children: Susan and William.

n      Sarah H. (1836-1866) married William Davis on Nov. 15, 1855 and is buried in Lee Cemetery. They had four children: Rube, Robert, George (1856-1921 m. Mary) and John.

n      Frances Margaret (1840-1889) married Houston Marbut on March 7, 1861 and is buried in Calton Cemetery, Barry Co., MO. The couple had eight children: Vedas Houston m. Bessie Bridges, Clinton m. Emma Thomas, William Madison m. Nina Marbut, Annas m. Adell Powell, Mary Lucinda m. James T. Henderson, Tursie Elvira m. James Henderson, Leota m. Felix Jackson and Emma Frances m. Robert Ethridge.

n      Andrew Jackson (1843-1857).

n      William (1845-1865), who enlisted in Union troops  in the Civil War in 1863 and died of war-related consumption two years later.

James William Inman (c. 1765-1835)

 

This son of Lazarus and Elizabeth White Inman has provided an enduring source of mystery for Inman researchers at least for 50 years. He was the known brother of Joseph and John Inman who died in Giles Co., TN but thanks to destroyed records and confusion about his name, James W. Inman left little consistent trail.

While Joseph, Isaac and John were listed among the next of kin for the late David Inman of Grainger Co. in 1801 James is omitted from the roster of brothers that included the little-unknown William and Henry.

James, according to Giles Co. census records, almost certainly was the husband of Martha and father of several known children, but many descendants insisted that the couple's names were passed down over the generations as "William and Martha."

The only compelling solution came from Jymie Carol Ford Inman of Kerens, TX whose husband descends from this line and she forwarded the information that these relatives believed they descended from "James William and Martha Elizabeth Inman."

When the bits and pieces of information for James and William Inman are fitted together, few conflicts emerge but they are explained rather easily.

The principal difference concerns age. The only record of James' age comes from the 1830 Giles Co. census when the rolls show he was in his 50s or born in the 1770s. This census was notoriously erratic and error-filled as shown by duplicate columns that when transcribed could have been interpreted as completely different families. William who served in the Revolution and was of age and paying taxes in 1787 in Augusta Co., VA must have been born by the mid-1760s.

Otherwise the data on William and James fit together perfectly and the symbiotic relationship between this man and his little brother, the childless Joseph, flows without a hitch for 60 years. The question remains: why the name change?

The older children of Lazarus Inman grew up on the farm next to their grandfather Isaac White who had married relatively late in life and had a son James White not much older that James William. The family may have used the name William instead to differentiate between them. The Inmans with their strong adherence to family naming patterns also were apt for generations to give children family first names but use the middle names on an everyday basis to distinguish them.

By 1793 William had moved to TN close to first cousin Abednego (son of Ezekiel) and Mary Ritchie Inman. Their oldest son William Hardin (or Henry in some versions) Inman (born Sept. 28, 1779) was coming of age in the 1790s and James William Inman may have switched to his first name in legal documents -- James then was not widely found among Inmans -- to again distinguish the two men.

The author of The King's Mountain Men nevertheless appears to have been caught up in the confusion. He writes that Abednego Inman had two older sons: William Hardin Inman who married Eleanor Wilson, which was correct; and James Wilson Inman who married Annie Lea. James Wilson Inman, however, was the son of William Hardin and married Annie J. Lea in 1833; the author and/or his sources apparently had been caught up in the general confusion about James William who was associated with Abednego in the early years of Jefferson Co. TN.

'William' of Augusta VA and TN

The first reference to William comes in the Revolution when William and brother David served in Capt. Finley's company of the Augusta Co. militia. This militia formed the core of the Virginians dispatched south to help the Tennesseans of the Holston Valley battle the Indian allies of the British in the late 1770s and early 1780s.

In 1780 William is shown as absent during the general court martial of the Augusta Co. militia. According to Augusta Co. records the period also coincided with considerable turmoil in father Lazarus Inman's household. No evidence exists that James William left the Augusta Co. area, tending perhaps the farm of his grandmother until 1793. In 1787 "William" is found as a taxpayer with a horse, a cow, no slaves and no other adult males in the household; he may have had young Inman brothers in the household or neighboring related households.

In 1791 his grandmother Jane Campbell White completed the sale of the family farm to her nephew Lt. and Sheriff James Steele. By 1793 and 1794 "William" Inman had moved to the Jefferson Co. TN area where he enlisted as a private in Doherty's regiment of the Militia for the Territory South of the Ohio, which was the formal designation of Tennessee Territory.⁽¹⁷⁾

On Oct. 10, 1796, "James" was commissioned militia captain for Jefferson Co., TN, the home of his first cousin, Abednego. He had two ensigns: his brother David and cousin Daniel, son of Shadrach Inman. This militia election strengthens the theory that James and William were the same men; otherwise, James would have been elected captain by his men with no known military history. His election more likely occurred because he had Revolutionary War experience buttressed by formal action on the TN frontier of the 1790s, not to mention the probable considerable influence of his mentors and cousins, Abednego and Shadrack.

By 1799, "William" and Joseph were taxpayers in Grainger Co. Joseph, at the age of 19, appears to have held title to the family land, where the late David and other family members farmed, fished, hunted, mined and milled. This 133-acre plot probably represented the first of the Inman family compounds, a tradition that lasted until 1930 in Christian Co., MO. For generations, the Inman fathers, Lazarus, James William and Elkanah, had an unfortunate pattern of dying and leaving young sons, who banded together in these compounds.

Inman's Mill Creek lay in Grainger Co., marking the site of a grain or sawmill; David's estate included a slave, 30 hogs and a grindstone. But this mill may, in large part, have belonged to Abednego, whose 1786 mill, across the county line from Greene Co., may have been in Grainger Co.

The records of Grainger Co. that survive are dotted with further references to William Inman.

The first marriage of James William

By 1796, James William probably had married. While a marriage to Martha Wilson is possible, he more likely had a first wife named Elizabeth or Sarah Elizabeth. The recollections of descendants of James William's son James C. about Martha Elizabeth as the wife and mother are likely an amalgam of the two women.

A gap exists in the children of James from as early as 1802 to 1813. The early children appear to have remained in East TN when James went west as part of the Wilson expeditions of 1806 and later. All the later children became adults in Giles Co., TN and moved west in late 1852 to Christian Co., MO; only the wife and children of John W. Inman from the earlier offspring moved to MO; they settled in a different location; and as Confederate sympathizers, they returned during the Civil War to TN.

James William likely married in the early 1790s in VA to a Sarah Elizabeth, perhaps an Alexander neighbor, who died c. 1805. The naming patterns for James' early children appear to have differed with the known, eldest granddaughters named Elizabeth; the later children named their early daughters Martha:

n      The first possible son, David Alexander (Sept. 15, 1796, VA-1880s, Christian Co., MO), had a first daughter by 1830 who died and is not recorded in that family's personal records thereafter.

n      Possible son Lazarus C. (1797/8, Grainger Co.-1860s, OR) had an eldest daughter Elizabeth.

n      Son James C. (1798/9-Sept. 11, 1844), had two eldest daughters whose names were Martha Frances and Sarah, possibly Sarah Elizabeth.

n      Son John W. (1800) named his eldest daughter Elizabeth.

n      Possible son Ezekiel (1804) had an eldest daughter Elizabeth Ellen.

An early settler of Middle Tennessee

James William's trail over the six years after David's death vanishes. Around 1806 or 1807, he moved to Hickman (then-Dickson) Co. in Middle TN as one of its first settlers.

In 1806, Adam Wilson Jr. of Greene Co., TN and at least three of his sons (William, Adam III and Joseph) moved to Dickson Co., TN. Adam became the first permanent white settler of what was created as Hickman Co. on Jan. 1, 1808, according to Goodspeed's history of the area, and Spence's 1900 history of Hickman Co. notes that Adam planted the first corn crop there, simply clearing the canebrake to make room.

Between 1807 and 1810, Goodspeed's says, the first settlers of Lick Creek were James Inman and Henry Mayberry. James had moved there with his brother Joseph, who in May 1808 was elected second major of the county militia. They were joined by Samuel Faught, a blacksmith, who two years before had been a neighbor of their brother Isaac Inman in modern Warren Co., TN and whose family would become prominent among the Inmans in Giles Co. and MO.

James may have brought his young family, but the available evidence suggests otherwise. All these early children had ties through 1830 in Carter Co. or other East TN locales. James likely left his motherless children behind with brother John and Susannah Clark Inman or other relations while making the trip west, after the death of their mother. Such dispersal of children almost became an Inman family tradition. Possible son Ezekiel, after his wife Sally Sanders died in Parke Co., IN, simply left his children with Sanders in-laws and started two new families in Illinois. When Inmans died in Giles Co., the children appear to have been parceled out among relations. When Grace Inman McConnell died in 1927 in Greene Co., MO, her Inman siblings divided up the children.

Joseph had been living in Hickman Co., TN when he enlisted as a second major in a West TN unit in the Creek War, but no reference to such military service for James (then in his late 40s or early 50s) has been found. Like many men of Middle TN in the Creek War, James may have enlisted in the 1st Alabama (actually Mississippi Territory) militia, and such records usually are not listed in TN indexes. 

Martha Wilson Inman

James' second likely marriage came to Martha Caroline Wilson (1780, NC-May 1860, Christian Co., MO) in either Hickman Co. or Carter Co., TN, where he had returned around 1810. She was the sister of Joel Wilson who was in Maury Co. in 1812 and may have been the daughter of William Wilson, the first presiding judge of the Hickman Co. Court in 1808, or his father, Adam, the first permanent white settler.

A McMinn Co., TN family history says that Adam (Sr. or Jr.) and his brother James came from Ireland to America, and James settled in East TN while Adam went to Missouri. This version truncates the family history, although Adam III of Hickman Co., TN did settle in Randolph Co., MO around 1823.

Adam (Sr. or Jr.) and James Wilson were assigned to road duty in Rowan Co., NC in 1775 along with Charles Wakefield, an Inman in-law, and Benjamin Inman, the brother of Abednego. In 1782, both Adam Wilson Sr. and Jr. and Abednego Inman began receiving numerous land grants (and re-grants) in Greene Co., TN as the war drew to a close. In 1784 in Greene Co., Adam Wilson witnessed a will with Abednego Inman as an executor and wife Mary 'Mollie' Ritchie Inman as a co-witness.

In Abednego's family, son William H. married Eleanor Wilson, and daughter Hannah married Daniel Wilson; but the parents of these Wilsons have not been determined. It likely was James or Benjamin, possible brothers of Adam; James became first sheriff of Greene Co., TN while Benjamin became a prominent East TN official.

Adam Wilson Sr. died by 1812, leaving property in Greene Co., TN, which son Adam Jr. of Hickman Co. paid taxes upon. Adam Jr. died in the 1820s, and his son moved to MO.

The family of Joel Wilson (NC, 1785) and wife Mary was intimately connected with James and Martha. Joel appears first in Maury Co. in 1811, age 26, paying taxes, and came to Giles by 1830. The couple had at least nine children.

Among the Wilson ties with James and Martha's children:

n      Daughter Eliza Louisa Inman Glover married James H. Wilson, son of Joel and Mary, as her second husband.

n      Son Elkanah had three sons who married James H. Wilson's daughters. Elkanah's son David, who married Cintha Charles, still named his eldest son Joel.

n      Daughter Nancy Ann married Francis P. Wilson, Joel and Mary's son. Their son married the granddaughter of Elkanah.

All these cousin marriages were, of course, legal, and a saying passed down was: "It's best to marry within the family."

To Giles Co., TN and Christian Co., MO

The records of Carter Co., TN indicate that James William Inman and his second wife Martha moved back to live on Gap Creek after his foray into middle Tennessee and remained there until the 1820s. In 1810, he witnessed a land transaction near his property on Gap Creek; in 1820 and thereafter he is mentioned among county jurors.

 

By early 1827, the Inmans had settled or resettled in Giles Co. for Andrew and Isaac Inman – sons of John Inman, brother of James William -- witnessed the survey documents for Samuel Faught on 25 acres along Dry Creek.

On Sept. 10, 1827, brothers James William and Joseph Inman received state land grants for 25 acres each, apparently in the Dry/Big Creek area of northwest Giles Co. The land lay just south of the village of Campbellsville. Andrew signed the occupant entry book in Weakley Co. of West TN, only age 18 to 22, but returned to Giles. (Joseph’s whereabouts from the War of 1812 until 1827 is not known, although he served in the first Seminole War in Florida.)

By the 1830 Giles Co. census, James, Joseph and their families are shown side by side with only one other Inman, Z. or Zachariah, living in the county. Zachariah had settled in the Lawrence Co.-Giles Co. area by 1812 with his father John and Uncle Meshack of SC and married Miticia Dickey. When his father and uncle, and their families, moved west, Zachariah stayed behind with the Dickeys.

None of James' early children is found in the county in the 1830 census with the possible exception of a daughter, b. 1790s, in his household, apparently with three children under 10. This woman, however, could have been another relation. The household does include all the known later children of James and Martha.

In the 1830s, James’ earlier children were drawn to the area. Both John W. and James C. Inman had come to Giles by 1833 when John sold him land. James C(ampbell) Inman may have been a circuit-riding Methodist minister who drew an assignment that included Old Salem Methodist Church on Dry Creek. The 1836 tax list for northeast Giles Co. includes Lazarus Inman and Philemon Lacey, who married James' daughter Sarah.

Brother John Inman moved to Giles Co. around 1836 with his son Isaac from south of Huntsville, AL, but John died Aug. 7, 1838. 

James William died sometime during the 1830s, but all attempts to determine when have failed. No tombstones or records for Old Salem or Campbellsville cemeteries correspond to the man. Many stones in Old Salem were buried or permanently lost when the isolated cemetery went untended after the church was destroyed by a tornado and the congregation and its families dispersed. Restoring those stones is virtually impossible because a 2003 visit to the graveyard, on a steep hillside, found the site to be intensely overgrown and snake-infested; it is no longer marked, but is fenced with chain link.  If James William was a retired Methodist circuit rider, he likely is buried there.

After his death, Martha continued living with her son, Elkanah D., and his wife Sarah Moore, probably on James William's original grant, in the 1840 census. But as Elkanah's family grew, Martha moved in with widowed daughter Louisa Caroline after her husband Finley Glover died in 1846.

Martha and her entire family in late 1852 moved to the portion of Greene Co. that later became Christian  Co., along with dozens of settlers from Giles and Maury Cos. Joining them were all but two sons of John W. (the just-deceased son from the first marriage).

By Jan. 2, 1853, John W.'s son James C. Inman owned livestock and 200 acres on the tax rolls of Greene Co., MO, which then included northern Christian, and Elkanah's last son was born in Christian Co. in 1853.

Martha was still living by 1860 when the census found her with her daughter Nancy Ann and husband Francis P. Wilson in Porter Township, Christian Co., southwest of the current city of Nixa.

Some believe she died about May 1860, but no stones or other records document her death. She likely is buried with son Elkanah in a family graveyard that was destroyed in the late 1800s. The graveyard is believed to have existed along current Route M south of Missouri 14 in Christian Co., also southwest of Nixa.

Martha lived to see her family grow prosperous on the edge of Guin Prairie in the Ozarks frontier. She didn't witness the days of horror and depravity that followed as the Civil War laid waste to the area.

Children of James William and Elizabeth (?) Inman

David Alexander Inman (Sept. 26, 1796-Aug. 6, 1892)

David Alexander, a likely son of James William, raised a family in Monroe and Loudon Cos., TN before the entire brood moved to Christian County, MO between the 1850s and 1880s. David Alexander also could have been the son of James William's older brother David who died c. 1800 in Grainger Co., TN.

The name David Alexander, however, appears numerous times in the Inman genealogy and probably represents the full name of the David who died c. 1800 in Grainger Co.. His father Lazarus was close to the Alexanders of Augusta Co. by 1760. Even if James William was the uncle rather than the father of this David, he likely played an important role in this man's early life because David Alexander named his first known son James L.

A blacksmith, David married Elizabeth Carnes of Monroe Co. before 1830 and lived near her widowed mother, also named Elizabeth. In early tax rolls of Grainger Co., James William and Joseph Inman lived near Michael Sr. and Michael Jr. Carnes. The name Nicholas came from this Carnes family.

David and Elizabeth Carnes Inman had a daughter (who didn't survive in family records), and two men in their 20s 'perhaps brothers, in-laws or farmhands' lived with the couple in 1830.

Eventually, the couple had 11 children recorded in a later family Bible:

n      James L. (June 23, 1830, Monroe Co., TN) married Sarah LNU and had a daughter, Martha Josephine, in 1859. They are found in Giles Co., TN in 1880.

n      Nicholas Alexander (Dec. 17, 1831, Monroe Co.-Feb. 5, 1901, Nixa) married Mary Jane Roberts (Jan. 21, 1842-Feb. 11, 1893),  daughter of the Rev. Peter Roberts of Porter Township. Nicholas Alexander led the family move to Christian Co. in the 1850s when he moved in with the Weaver family of Ozark and began smithing with a fellow tenant, Samuel Faught, son of Samuel Faught of Giles Co., TN and nephew of the late Wiley B. Faught. Sr. of Giles Co., TN. Nicholas and Samuel closed their smithy when the Civil War began; Nicholas buried his tools and enlisted. When he returned, Nicholas reopened, but at a farm he had owned south of Springfield. Probably significantly, Nicholas settled after the war with the Inmans who had relocated from Giles Co. When a post office was opened there in 1878, the crossroads needed a name and residents reportedly united behind 'Nicks-A' or Nixa, a combination of his first name and initial. Nicholas, wife Mary Jane Roberts and his parents are buried in Payne Cemetery northwest of Nixa. The couple had nine children, many of which relocated to Dade Co., Springfield or Texas.

n      Sarah E. (May 25, 1833, Monroe Co.-after 1900, Greene Co.) married James L. Thacker (1828-1906) of Battlefield.

n      Lucinda Phebe (Jan. 3, 1836, Monroe Co.-Aug. 12, 1841, Monroe Co.).

n      Winnie A. (Nov. 9, 1841, Monroe Co.-March 24, 1926, Nixa) married Eli Allison Carroll, son of Henry Carroll and Annalina Strain, in 1869 in Monroe Co. They had seven children before they migrated to Missouri after 1884.

n      John Watts (Feb. 17, 1843, Monroe Co.-Aug. 7, 1930, Republic) married 1) Isabella Carroll, Eli's sister, and 2) Lydia Curtis. Altogether, he had six children, most of which moved toward Republic.

n      Frederick Samuel (May 31, 1846, Monroe Co.-Jan. 13, 1914, Binger, OK) married 1) Eliza Jane Aven, daughter of John Duff Aven and Sarah Rose, 2) Nancy Jane Bolin, daughter of Granville Bolin and Martha Cassinda Ruyle, and 3) Nannie J. Stephenson. After his marriage to the much younger Stephenson, Inman moved to Caddo Co., OK where many Christian Co. families had relocated.

n      Frances C. (March 4, 1848, Monroe Co.) married Jesse Watson.

n      David Presley (Jan. 8, 1850, Monroe Co.-May 22, 1936, Greene Co.) married Phoebe Lucinda Cantrell (June 30, 1861-Jan. 18, 1948), daughter of James Talma Cantrell and Sarah Ann Jones.

n      William B. (Feb. 23, 1851, Monroe Co.-Aug. 13, 1861).

n     Elvinia (1854, Monroe Co.-Sept. 15, 1928, Christian Co.)

James Campbell Inman (1798/1801- Sept. 11, 1844)

Descendants of this man provided the information about the dual identity of James William Inman, but even less is known about this son. He does not appear before 1833 when he bought land from his brother John W. Inman in Giles Co., and the two are living nearby in the 1840 census.

James C.'s wife and children, however, may have been the extra persons in the household of James William Inman in the 1830 census. James C. -- and not his father -- may have been the circuit-riding Methodist minister and missed the census taker.

James married Sarah, who is shown as age 51 in the 1850 census. But no particulars about this marriage have been discovered.

James died, apparently in the 1844 black tongue epidemic, and he was buried in Campbellsville Cemetery. The day of his death and birth, however, is identical, suggesting that the mason mistranscribed the entire date of birth, which is shown as Sept. 11, 1811; the census suggests he was born in the 1790s, perhaps 1801.

James had at least three sons and five daughters:

n      Martha Frances Inman (Nov. 1, 1820-July 1, 1840) married by 1835 her cousin Andrew Jackson Moore, son of James Moore and Jane Inman. They had two children: William Tipton and Sarah Frances.

n      Rev. Joseph C. Inman (1825-1862), a blacksmith and minister, married Elizabeth Ann Spears and then Elvira J. McAllister before they moved to Gainesville, Lauderdale Co., Alabama in late 1860 from Lawrence Co., TN. He and Elizabeth Ann had sons John Riley and (James) William (M.). By Elvira, he had (Joseph) Jackson. Joseph C. was an heir of his great-uncle Major Joseph Inman; the major's will gave Joseph C. and brother John C. possession of a slave, Elias, who was freed on Sept. 13, 1855. Joseph C. changed his mind after the emancipation had been registered and sued for ownership; the court ruled that Elias was to be transported back to the West Coast of Africa just before the Emancipation Proclamation. The case went to the TN Supreme Court.

After Joseph C.'s death, attorney E.T. Taliaferro became guardian of his children. Joseph C. left property on Richland Creek in the 19th District of Giles County.

Around 1854, Joseph C. took in the orphaned son of his cousin John D. Inman, the son of John W. and Hannah Simmerley Moore Inman. John D. had married c. 1851 and fathered a son, Joseph Walker Inman, on Jan. 11, 1852. Shortly afterward, both parents were killed or otherwise died. John D.'s family, except for brothers David A. and perhaps Joseph, had moved to Christian Co., MO in late 1852, and Joseph C. became the guardian, according to the young orphan's descendants.

The 1860 census shows Joseph C. Inman in Lawrence Co. with a Joseph W., age 8, out of order, suggesting he was not a member of the immediate family. When Joseph C. moved to Alabama, the child moved in with his uncle, David A. Inman, and later his widowed aunt, Francis Faught Inman, who had moved back from Christian Co., MO.

n      John C. Inman (1827-1858), also a blacksmith, married Sarah N.  and fathered James Nathaniel (1843, to Benton Co., TN), Joseph Wiley, Susan E. (1845-1874, m. E.J. Finch and moved to Carroll Co.) and Nancy Jane (1847-Oct. 7, 1879). He owned 272 acres in the 5th District of Giles County, near the Parker nephews of Mary Ann "Polly" Parker McConnell. After his death, Sarah remarried to Wiley Smothers in January 1865. Nancy Jane married R.N. Anderson and inherited 100 acres in Giles Co. from her father; she swapped the land for property in Benton Co., TN, where several in the family moved. She didn't like the new home and moved to Carroll Co., TN, where she died. She left her husband with two very young children, Alonzo and Sarah Elizabeth

n      Teresa or Tirza Jane Inman (1828) married John Franklin Kilpatrick (March 13, 1831, Maury Co.-Aug. 3, 1907). They had two children, Susan and William Joseph.

n      Susannah Inman (1831-1912) married in 1852 James Porter McAllister (Jan. 12, 1835-Feb. 13, 1906) and moved to Zephyr, Brown Co., TX. She was awarded land by great-uncle Joseph Inman's 1855 will and, in direct language, full control over it to the exclusion of her husband. Susannah and Porter had seven children and remained married for their entire lives.

n      Cynthia Inman (1834).

n      James Jasper Inman (Aug. 13, 1836-Aug. 9, 1858). He was living with brother Joseph C. in Lawrence Co. after their father's death.

John W. Inman (1800-June 6, 1852)

John W. on Jan. 11, 1821 married a young widow, Hannah Simmerly Moore of Carter Co., TN, the daughter of the German emigrant Adam Simmerly and Hannah Nowland. James Lacey and the prominent Abraham Tipton of Carter Co. acted as sureties. The elder Simmerlys had been married in 1790 in Carter Co.; their daughter Hannah was briefly married to William Moore before her vows with Inman.

John W. stayed behind in Carter Co. with Hannah's family, brother Lazarus C. and his sister Sarah, the wife of Philemon Lacy, even after his father had relocated to Giles Co.

Making their move in the 1830s, John W. and Hannah raised their family on a farm on Dry Creek Road, near the Faughts and Parkers. He became one of the wealthiest landowners of the entire county, showing real estate holdings worth $10,000 in the 1850 census.

John W. died on June 6, 1852, just before the family moved to Missouri, and he is buried in Old Salem Cemetery. His son Andrew applied to have brother James C. named guardian on March 10, 1854 in Greene County, MO. In September, James C. was named official guardian of minors (under age 20) Andrew, Thomas and Nancy Ann.

These Inmans had continued the family's minor slaveholding tradition, and in 1854, James C. applied in Greene County Circuit Court for access to a trust established for his minor brothers and sisters with the sale of three slaves in Giles Co.

In 1867, Hannah Simmerley Moore Inman returned to and died in Obion Co., TN, and son Thomas B. quickly liquidated the family holdings in Ozark and the farms and returned to Tennessee with his new wife, Rebecca Faught Ruyle, after 1868.

Born to John W. and Hannah were:

n             James C. (May 28, 1821-Dec. 21, 1865), who married Francis Faught (Oct. 25, 1822-Nov. 17, 1903), daughter of Wiley B. and Elizabeth Ann Wood Faught.

James C. and his wife Francis married on Jan. 9, 1845, before the families headed for Missouri. Probably with the help of capital from his father's estate and control over the minors' holdings, James C. assembled 738 acres of land on the western edge of Ozark, according to 1856 tax records. The area now includes the Fasco plant, Chapman cemetery and several subdivisions near the intersection of Highways 65 and 14.

The 1860 agricultural census shows he was farming 460 acres, worth $9,375, in Finley Township west of Ozark. He raised 200 bushels of wheat and 2,000 of corn that year along with rye and oats for the six horses. Few farmers in the county were more prosperous.

Frances had been one of 12 children born to Wiley B. Faught Sr. (1799-1841), a Georgian, and his wife Elizabeth Ann Wood, who moved to Giles and Lawrence Cos., TN in the 1820s.

Frances and James C. settled in Ozark next door to her mother Elizabeth Ann Wood Faught (1792), an Alabama native, and her children Rebecca Faught Ruyle (1838) and James J. Faught (1842). Also living in town was cousin Samuel B. Faught, a blacksmith. Brothers Levi C. married Mary Jane Keltner of Nixa, and John W. took as his wife Mary Ann McConnell, also of the Nixa area.

James C. was the county surveyor who laid out the new town of Ozark after it was named the county seat in 1859, and he quickly assembled more land in anticipation of growth.

Through May 22, 1861, James C. was still buying Christian Co. land, but after the bloody, nearby Battle of Wilson's Creek, he began selling: on Oct. 19, 1861, he sold 300 acres to Benjamin Chapman for $3,800. The cemetery, however, he sold to Thomas Hanks as part of a 17- to 18-acre deal in 1861.

Then James C. is believed to have entered military service, apparently in Arkansas, for the Confederates.

On Aug. 22, 1863, he bought 1,000 acres in Lawrence Co., AR from John A. Lindsay near Smithville. James C. may have planned to relocate to Arkansas when hostilities ended.

Meanwhile, between October 1861 and May 1862, as the Civil War raged, Frances Faught Inman drove her family by wagon from Christian Co. down Crowley Ridge to Helena, AR, where brother Moses met her at the Mississippi River and returned the Inmans to Giles Co. They obviously were Confederate sympathizers because the last son born, Sterling Price in 1862, was named for the Confederate general then marauding across Missouri.

James C. Inman died Dec. 21, 1865, reportedly as a result of war injuries, after he returned to Giles Co.

Frances conducted land transactions in Christian Co. after his death and appears to have visited the area at least though 1868 with brother Moses M. Faught to help handle the dispersal of the family property. On Jan. 16, 1868, her brothers Levi C. and Wiley B. Jr. were named administrators of James C.'s estate with George W. Parker and Thomas B. Inman of Obion Co., TN as securities.

In 1866, she and the family had become wards of Giles Co., but they moved and built large farms and stores in Obion and Dyer Cos., TN. The move to Obion Co. came after she had visited Christian Co. in 1868 to handle property details, and Francis brought her mother, Elizabeth Ann Wood Faught, who loathed Missouri, back to Obion.

Francis died in Newbern, TN Nov. 17, 1903, but is buried in Old Salem Cemetery in Giles alongside her husband. James C. and his wife Frances (1822) had seven children:

·       Mary Elizabeth "Mollie" (April 27, 1846-1922) who married George W. Parker, son of Alfred W., and settled in Newbern, TN. George was the great-nephew of Polly Parker (Mrs. Walter) McConnell and the great-grandson of Jeremiah and Milly Robey Parker. The Parkers had moved to Newburn, Dyer Co., TN by 1870.

·       Martha Jane (March 10, 1850-May 23, 1868). According to a newspaper report, Frances' daughter Martha Jane (1850) died of pneumonia at the home of uncle Levi Carl Faught in Nixa. The tombstone reflects those dates. She is buried in the Chapman Family Cemetery on the west edge of Ozark, south of Highway 14, near the Fasco Mfg. Co. plant.

·       Sarah Hannah (April 29, 1852-Oct. 20, 1893), who died single in Dyer Co., TN.

·       James M. (Jan. 8, 1855-Nov. 13, 1874), who died of malaria.

·       Franklin Columbus "Lum" (Feb. 29, 1856-November 1927), a business man in Newbern, TN, who co-owned and -operated the Industrial District of Newbern, a wagon spoke factory, by 1895 and in 1902 added a cotton gin. The business sold in 1918. Lum married Annie Thompson in 1897 and Annie Ramsey in 1907.

·       Thomas Wiley (Aug. 15, 1859, MO-1860), probably buried in an unmarked grave in Chapman Cemetery, Ozark.

·       Sterling Price (May 16, 1862, TN-Jan. 31, 1932). He was a partner with his brother Lum in the Inman Bros. enterprises.

Among the other children of John W. and Hannah Simmerly Inman:

n      Martha Inman (Aug. 27, 1822-before 1864), who married Isham Wilbern Faught, son of Wiley B.Sr. and Elizabeth Ann Wood Faught, and moved to Christian Co., MO. Isham remarried to Louisa Osborne of Searcy Co., AR, and the family relocated in the 1870s to Arkansas and then Denton Co., TX where the Tennessee Faughts had moved.

n      John D. Inman (April 4, 1826-June 14, 1854), who married c. 1851 and had a son, Joseph Walker Inman, on Jan. 11, 1852. John and his wife were killed, according to descendants. On March 7, 1859, brother James C. Inman filed power of attorney in Greene Co., MO for his brother-in-law Moses M. Faught of Giles to settle the estate of his brother, John D. Brother Joseph Inman, then of California, filed similar papers in Giles for brother David A. Inman to act as attorney on June 17, 1859. Little Joseph, the orphan, first lived with his father's cousin, Joseph C. Inman, at least through 1860 in Lawrence Co. When Joseph C. moved to Gainesville, AL in late 1860, Joseph went to live with his uncle David Alexander. When Francis Faught (Mrs. James C.) Inman returned from Christian Co., MO and her husband died, she took custody of young Joseph. He was still living with Francis and her children when they appeared in the 1870 Obion Co., TN census. Joseph soon bought a Giles Co. farm from his uncle David, but in 1881, he relocated to Danville, Logan Co., AR.

n      David Alexander Inman (June 11, 1830-March 12, 1897). David A. stayed in Giles Co. when the rest of the family moved to Missouri; he attended the family farm and his blacksmith shop while entering sundry business dealings with the Parkers (the family of Mary Ann "Polly" Parker McConnell) that resulted in repeated court cases after the Civil War. David A., who owned property southwest of Campbellsville, TN, married Martha Puryear, daughter of Henry D. Puryear, in 1854. They eventually moved to AL in 1888 and to Limestone, TX where David and Martha died.  

n      Joseph Inman (1833) went to California, and his family lost track of him.

n      Elizabeth Inman (1835), known as Betsy. She married William Jesse Jones -- probably a transplant from Giles Co., TN -- in Christian Co. on Jan. 20, 1853. They had a daughter, Mary A., on Feb. 3, 1856, but Betsy died that day.

n      Andrew Jackson Inman (1839) married Sarah Ann Stephenson, daughter of William Mulligan Stephenson and Melinda Brazeale, in 1857 in Greene (now Christian Co.), MO and had a daughter, Martha, on Aug. 9, 1859. The family moved to Hootentown, Stone Co., MO

n      Thomas Inman (July 26, 1840-Dec. 25, 1876) married Rebecca Faught Ruyle of Ozark, MO, and returned to Obion Co., TN.

n      Nancy Anna Frances Inman (Jan. 29, 1844-Feb. 7, 1926) married William Jesse Jones, a Nixa blacksmith and Union Army veteran, as his third wife on July 22, 1860. They had eight children:

·       Martha Jane Jones (June 13, 1863) married Elijah Jackson (April 1860) on July 19, 1883 and had two children in Stone Co.,  William Randolph Jackson (July 6, 1884-March 2, 1967), who married Pearl M. Jackson, and James Jackson.

·        Joseph Frank Jones (Feb. 2, 1864-Nov. 28, 1929) married Nancy J. Jackson (Aug. 24, 1866, AR-Dec. 12, 1936, Nixa).  They had eight children.

·       James Robert "Dade" Jones (Oct. 22, 1867-April 3, 1948, Aurora) married Anna Malinda Coker (Aug. 15, 1869-June 12, 1941, Nixa). They had two sons: William Jesse Jones II who married Cynthia Bowman; and John Homer Jones who married Lorene Hayes.

·       John Henry Jones (July 28, 1869-Dec. 4, 1943, Monett) married Allie Fair Willhite (Oct. 22, 1882-Aug. 22, 1953, Clever). They had 12 children, including Tilda Marina Jones (July 22, 1906-April 23, 1969) who married the Rev. Fred Otto Inman, son of Finley Glover Inman. They apparently never knew they were cousins.

·       David Anderson "Babe" Jones (Feb. 2, 1874-July 13, 1957, Los Angeles) married Mattie "Matt" Viola Day (1875-1945). They were instrumental in the early years of taking care of the children of John Walter McConnell and Grace Bell Inman after she died. Their son Harvey married Florence Elizabeth Inman, the daughter of James and Jane Sparkman Inman.

·       Albert G. "Eit" Jones (Dec. 20, 1876-1945) married Cora Willhite.

·       Charles Wesley Jones (Jan. 27, 1878-Feb. 28, 1939) married Clara Mae Sparkman (Jan. 6, 1881-April 15, 1947, Aurora). Their home was hit by a tornado in May 1915 that killed his young son William Alexander and injured his mother severely; she was expected to die, but recovered and applied for her husband's war pension. Among the 12 children was Frances Ophelia Jones (April 18, 1905-Nov. 7, 1972), who married Robert F. Inman (Dec. 19, 1899-May 1991), the son of Finley Glover Inman.

·       Allis E. Jones (1872) married William W. Benson. 

Lazarus C. Inman (1797/8-1860s)

Lazarus was the son of John or James William Inman.

 

Lazarus C., who was born in Grainger Co., according to Oregon sources, married Susannah Stover, daughter of Daniel Stover Jr. (b. 1770s) and Phoebe Ward of Carter Co., TN and purported relative of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, on Feb. 18, 1823 in Carter Co., TN before JP John Williams. Lazarus' name was recorded as Ingram in marriage records, but correctly in later legal documents.

Immediately after their marriage, Lazarus C. and Susan moved to Indiana, where they had four children, including twins, and then moved back to Carter Co., TN, by the 1830 census, when he was living with or next door to his sister Sarah (Mrs. Philemon) Lacey. The move to Indiana may have coincided with Stover family relocations, including those of the Lincolns to the KY-IL-IN triangle; if Ezekiel Inman was Lazarus' brother, he could have gone to Hardin Co., KY in connection with the move to Indiana.

The 1836 Giles Co., TN tax lists show Lazarus in that county on his way to Madison Co., AL by the 1840 census. He became or already had been close to Abednego's son John Ritchie Inman and his children, and Lazarus C. moved to east-central MO in 1843 with John R.'s sons James Madison Inman, John W. Inman, Joel Cowan Inman and their sisters, Elizabeth W. Inman (Mrs. Joseph P.) Woodruff, Jane Inman (Mrs. George B.) Woodruff and Caroline Matilda Inman (Mrs. Benjamin) Woodruff. The Woodruffs settled in extreme southwest Franklin Co., MO while Lazarus and Susan went to Bourbeuse Township, Gasconade Co., MO nearby. Lazarus and Susan's eldest child, Elizabeth (1824, IN), however, went to Franklin County for her marriage license.

(The grandson of George B. and Jane Inman Woodruff, John Woodruff, became attorney for the Frisco Railroad, a land developer and one of the wealthiest men of 20th century Springfield, MO, developing the Hickory Hill Country Club and owning half of the spa village of Siloam Springs, AR.)

The 1850 census shows Lazarus and Susan living with Isaac (1827, IN), David W. (1830, IN), Teresa (1830, IN), Thomas (1845, MO) and L., a male (1850, MO), next door to their daughter Elizabeth and her husband, Milton M. Childers, who had two small sons and a daughter. 

At least Lazarus Inman, Joel C. Inman and Benjamin Woodruff and their families headed out on the Oregon Trail in 1852 and 1853. Benjamin died en route, although the family record says he died in the Colorado Gold Rush. Lazarus arrived in Oregon in September 1852 and claimed land there on June 22, 1853. He appears to have died by 1863 when son Isaac S. sold part of the claim. David W. Inman married Mary Richardson in Oregon.

Sarah Inman Lacey (1801-1871)

Sarah Inman married in Carter Co., TN to Philemon D. Lacy (1792-1887) on April 25, 1819. He was the son of James Isaac Lacey (Nov. 3, 1771-Aug. 19, 1847) and Nancy Edens (Nov. 15, 1773-Sept. 8, 1847) of Washington and Carter Cos., TN. The Laceys had come from Pittsylvania Co, VA while the Edens were among the earliest settlers of eastern TN, settling there before 1772; the first white settler only came to TN in 1769. Nancy Edens’ mother, Martha Chastain, was the sister of early preachers who were descended from French settlers and held the first revival in TN in 1772. The Edens owned land beside the Inmans on Gap Creek.

Sarah and Philemon lived in Carter Co. until after 1830. His brother Alexander married Sarah Simmerly, the cousin of Hannah Simmerly, who married John Inman, Sarah’s brother. The Laceys were engaged in the iron industry, which was closely tied to the Inmans, whose early members included numerous blacksmiths.

By 1836, Sarah and Philemon moved to northwest Giles Co., TN, where they are found on the tax lists. The Laceys then spent eight years in Walker Co., GA with Philemon’s brother Isaac and wife Rebecca Tipton, a member of the Carter Co. family descended from one of the first governors of Tennessee.

In the 1840s, Sarah and Philemon returned to Giles Co. In 1849, the Laceys began the move west to what was then almost the farthest limits of civilization – fledgling Dallas, TX. High waters at Memphis forced the family to spend the winter and spring there, but in May 1850 they hired a boat up the White River of Arkansas and took a team of oxen overland to Dallas, arriving in October. There, Philemon claimed a stake of 320 acres, and the couple lived there until they died, Sarah in 1871 and Philemon on Dec. 17, 1887. They were members of the Baptist church.

The Laceys had three sons:

n      David A. Lacey (Nov. 1, 1830, Carter Co., TN-after 1892, Dallas, TX), who married twice, to Paulina Cockrell with whom he had nine children and Rebecca Rutherford, who became mother to four more. Besides farming, he owned teams that hauled goods to Houston and Shreveport and served four years in the Confederate army.

n     Alexander Lacey (1821, Carter Co.-1849, Memphis, TN), who died while the family was waiting for the Misssissippi River waters to subside on the trip to Texas from Giles Co.

n     Abraham Tipton Lacey (1827, Carter Co.-after 1892), who did not marry. He lived on and helped run his brother David’s farm near Dallas.

Ezekiel Inman (1804-1873)

The parentage of the notorious Ezekiel Inman is among the most hotly researched and contested in Inman family circles. Early members of this man's family were born in Indiana and moved to southern Greene Co. in the 1840s. The naming patterns are identical.

Children of James William and Martha Wilson Inman

Louisa Caroline 'Lizzie' Inman (December 1813-1910/17)

Lizzie was possibly the twin sister of Elkanah, whose exact age has not been determined, and moved with the family to Giles Co., TN, in the late 1820s.

She married Finley Glover (1811-Sept. 21, 1846), the son of Ransom Glover and Mary Barnett of Lawrence Co., TN, in the 1830s in Giles Co., and as a war hero and victim, his name was passed down through the Inman family for generations. Finley enlisted for the Mexican-American War on June 1, 1846 in Nashville and was among its first American casualties. He was struck by a cannonball that passed through his body at the Battle of Monterey.

Widow Lizzie was living with her mother Martha in 1850 in Giles Co. Before leaving for Missouri, this fleet-footed widow, however, remarried Feb. 10, 1852 to James H. Wilson, the widower of Sarah Emily Hawthorn and a cousin through Lizzie's mother Martha Wilson Inman. James H. had four daughters, Mary, Margaret, Nancy Lavanda and Sarah Catherine, all of whom came to Missouri. Three married sons of Lizzie's brother, Elkanah.

James H. Wilson died Oct. 6, 1862 and left substantial property, including unpaid loans made to Christian  Co. farmers, to Lizzie and his daughters. By 1870, Lizzie was keeping house for Charles Thomas and Matilda Hedgpeth Herndon next door to her sister, widow Nancy Ann Inman Wilson. Nancy Ann had married James H.'s brother, Francis P., who died in 1864 in the Civil War.

On Sept. 7, 1871, William Sanders married Lizzie before Elder Benjamin Franklin Hollowell in Christian County. Although from Kentucky, Sanders, too, may have been related, at least by marriage. He was the brother of Sally Sanders, the first wife of Ezekiel Inman, Lizzie's possible half-brother.

William ranked among the leading county farmers, with 100 of his 300 acres in Finley and Porter Townships in cultivation in 1870, valued at $3,000. He ranged four horses, four milk cows, six other cattle and 15 hogs in 1869 while growing 200 bushels of winter wheat, 450 bushels of corn, 200 bushels of oats and 50 bushels of Irish potatoes; he milled 25 gallons of molasses, for farm production worth $900 in the still war-stressed economy.

William had married first to fellow Kentuckian Rachel Wickersham on Sept. 14, 1839, but she died in the 1860s in Christian Co. They had seven daughters, all born in Missouri:

n      Susan (1840-1880) married Joseph W. Curbow on Feb. 5, 1863.

n      Sarah Jane (1842-1905) married Thomas Benton Manley of the James River valley on Jan. 3, 1866.

n      Mary Ellen (Jan. 6, 1844-April 18, 1935) married her cousin, John A. Richard Sanders, son of Elijah and Charlotta Saxton Sanders, on Oct. 18, 1863.

n      Maria E. (1847-before 1860, d.s.p.)

n      Rachel Virginia Ann (1849-1939) married Jesse Young Nov. 13, 1870.

n      Rebecca (1850) is found in the 1860 census, but not in 1870. No marriage is recorded for her in Christian Co.  Her marriage record may have burned in the courthouse fire.

n      Margaret C. (1852-1929) married Henry C. Willoughby Sept. 27, 1874.

William and Louisa C.⁽¹⁸⁾ are shown living together in 1880 on a farm southwest of Nixa. William died Dec. 28, 1891, and Lizzie moved in with sister Nancy Ann Wilson, her son William Daniel Wilson, and his wife, Sarah Ann Inman, the granddaughter of Elkanah. William had just been released from prison for the murder of his cousin's husband and soon began scouting for land in the newly opened Indian Territory.

In 1900, Lizzie was still living with the couple and Nancy in Porter Township.

Lizzie had an independent source of income, either from the estate of her third husband, William Sanders or a pension. In 1905, Bill Wilson filed suit against her in Christian Co. Circuit Court.⁽¹⁹⁾ On Sept. 21, 1905, the Ozark Tribune reported that the case had been arbitrated and the settlement confirmed; Bill and Sarah Elizabeth were awarded $385 and court costs. The suit apparently tapped Lizzie's funds for repayment of the room, board and other expenses that Bill incurred.

Accounts of Lizzie's personality have not been passed down; she may have been a penny-pinching, demanding crone who provoked the suit after many years of generous support by Bill and the Wilson family. However, the suit contributes to the Jekyll-and-Hyde picture of Bill Wilson.

Lizzie sold a large tract of land, almost 160 acres southeast of Nixa, to John Riley 'Pete' Edwards in November 1905 for $2,000. The sale likely came as the family was disposing of assets to move to Oklahoma, which came in mid-1907, and she was paying off her debt to Bill Wilson.

The Wilson-Inman families ended up in Craig Co., OK. Rather than the Wilsons, Lizzie moved in nearby with her nephew Finley Glover Inman, son of Elkanah, and his wife Mary Louisa, daughter May and son-in-law Tom Robison. Hard feelings may have persisted from the lawsuit with W.D. Wilson.

Aunt Lizzie died there before 1917, and she is buried in Garden Grove Cemetery, near Centerview, OK, beside Nancy. They are surrounded by Sanders graves, possibly the resting place of relatives of Lizzie's last husband, William.

William had no sons, but five nephews, sons of Elijah and Charlotta Sanders, some of whom may have settled in Oklahoma.

Martha Ann Inman Gamble (May 19, 1816-Oct. 10, 1886)

Martha was born in Carter Co., TN, but primarily raised in Giles, where the Inman families were neighbors of William W. Gamble around Dry Creek.

His son, Samuel J. Gamble (May 31, 1815-Sept. 18, 1861), married Martha there and joined the Inman exodus to Greene/Christian Co., probably in late 1852. They settled by 1860 in Wilson Township, Greene Co., where they rented a farm near the current city of Battlefield around the Riggs, Childers, Winn and Moore families. The Gambles were separated by about six miles and the James River from her Inman siblings and mother in Christian Co.

Samuel died just after the Battle of Wilson's Creek, and he is buried in Phillips Cemetery, about a mile north of Battlefield in Greene Co.  The family could clearly hear -- if not see -- the events of the Battle of Wilson's Creek.

During the tumultuous war years, Martha moved her large family southwest of Nixa, where they were living in 1870 next door to her likewise-widowed sister, Nancy Ann Inman Wilson.

But with new son-in-law George T. Keltner taking over farming duties, the Gambles returned to Greene Co.  in the 1870s. In 1880, the family lived on a farm in Brookline Township, Greene Co. on the rim of the James River Valley.   Martha Ann died there in 1886, but Gambles continued to own land around Battlefield until recent times. Most of her children moved toward the fledgling village of Republic and settled near what became the farms of Ida Mae Inman McConnell and her children. 

Among the known children of Samuel J. and Martha Ann Inman Gamble:

n      Louisa Frances Gamble (May 10, 1841, Giles Co.-Aug. 20, 1910) was still unmarried and living with her mother in 1880. She is buried at Phillips Cemetery.

n      William J. Gamble (1841), a farmer, married Mary E. LNU and moved to Christian Co. during or after the Civil War from Greene Co. They had at least two children, Narcissa (1866) and James F. (1868) by the 1870 census, but are not found in the 1880 census nationwide. This marriage license likely was destroyed in the 1865 Ozark courthouse fire.

n      Martha Caroline (Aug. 14, 1843-Nov. 2, 1925) married George T. Keltner (April 2, 1847-Aug. 8, 1935), son of Absalom (1810-1860) and Margaret Horn (1809) Keltner, of Giles and Christian Cos. Martha and George wed on Jan. 10, 1869 before JP Columbus J. Faught in Christian Co., where both families were living at the time. The Horns and Keltners both had migrated from Giles Co. farms near the Inmans. Martha and George moved with her mother to Brookline Township, Greene Co. in the 1870s. They had at least five children: Mary F. (1870), Walter S.A. (1872), Everett T. (1875), Martha (1876) and W. Franklin (1879).  They are buried at Evergreen Cemetery, Republic.

n      Lucinda Ellen (1845-April 29, 1923) was still unmarried and living with her mother in 1880. She is buried at Phillips Cemetery.

n      Samuel J. (Sept. 20, 1850, Giles Co.-Jan. 19, 1919), who was farming and living with his mother in 1880. He later took over the family farm, but also owned properties east of Republic. He is buried at Phillips Cemetery.

n      Narcissa Arminta (April 11, 1845-Dec. 13, 1924, Republic). Narcissa or Nancy Arminta married William Fletcher Steele, son of John Pope Steele and Jane Ramsey, at her mother's home on Sept. 1, 1883 before the Rev. J.C. Baxter. They owned a large farm east of Republic. They are buried at Lindsey Cemetery, Republic.

n      James M. (1848) married Mattie Franklin on June 23, 1886 at his mother's home before the Rev. J.J. Cole.

n      Arena/Irena K. (1850) married William Woods, an Indiana native, before 1874. They lived on a farm close to her mother and George T. Keltner. William and Irena had at least three children: Arthur F. (1874), William C. (1875) and Jack G. 1867).

n      Frank P. (1852), probably named for his uncle, Francis P. Wilson, who had married Nancy Ann Inman.

n      Delphina (May 2, 1857, Greene Co.-April 18, 1921) married Isaac Robbins (Sept. 20, 1848-April 10, 1922). They are buried at Lindsey Cemetery.

n      Mary L. Molly (1856, Greene Co.) was living with her mother in 1880. She married E.T. Robbins of Wilson Township on Sept. 1, 1889 at her brother Samuel J.'s home before JP J.R. Ferguson.

Nancy Ann Inman Wilson (October 1820-Nov. 12, 1915)

Nancy Ann married Francis P. Wilson (1831-Feb. 23, 1864), a Giles Countian,⁽²⁹⁾ on July 20, 1854 in Greene Co., MO when it still included Porter Township of Christian County. Francis P. was the much younger son of Joel and Mary Wilson of Giles Co. and brother of James H. Wilson, the second husband of Nancy's sister Louisa. Standing as witnesses in the ceremony before the Rev. Bryan T. Nowlin were Nancy's brother and nephew, Elkanah D. and James L. Inman.

Sometime before her marriage, Nancy Ann Inman filed a civil suit for slander against Peter Ussery in Greene Co. Circuit Court; the court ordered that Francis P. become party to the case in September 1856.⁽³⁰⁾  Ussery lived in southern Maury Co. in 1830, although he had kin in Giles, and he had moved his family to northern Greene Co., MO by 1840 and remained there in 1850; he lived in Dallas Co., MO by 1860.

Nancy's in-laws, Joel and Mary Wilson, joined in a slander suit against Ussery, but it was moved on a change of venue to Webster Co. The subject and outcome are unknown.

In Porter Township, Nancy Ann and Francis P. set up housekeeping next to her brother Elkanah and his wife, cousin Sarah. Springfield federal land office records show Francis P. claimed 40 acres in Section 23, Township 27, Range 22, southeast of Nixa, between Nov. 16, 1857 and Nov. 15, 1858.

The Wilsons had four children: James (May 22, 1856), Mary Louisa (March 20, 1858), William Daniel (Dec. 15, 1859) and Martha Anna Frances (Aug. 4, 1862). Both James and Martha, named for Inman grandparents, died as toddlers.

Before the war began, Francis P., like his brother-in-law Elkanah Inman, was a tobacco farmer, raising a crop worth $1,000 in 1860.

Francis P. enrolled in Co. D of the 8th Regiment, Missouri Cavalry Volunteers at Springfield on August 9, 1862, and he died on Feb. 23, 1864 in the regimental hospital at Duvall's Bluff, AR from pneumonia and chronic diarrhea. Few realize that the major cause of death for most units in the Civil War was not enemy gunfire, but disease and poor sanitation.

Military records show Francis P. was 5-feet-8 with fair complexion, hazel eyes and dark hair.

The lives of Francis P.'s and Elkanah Inman's families were always intertwined. Elkanah's wife Sarah served as midwife at the birth of Nancy's children. Elkanah's son Finley Glover took Mary Louisa Wilson as his second wife; Finley Glover's daughter by his first marriage, Sarah Elizabeth, married Will D. Wilson. Will murdered Daniel Stephenson, Elkanah and Sarah's son-in-law. (See separate section under Elkanah and Sarah Moore Inman.)

During the 1870s, Nancy Ann also took in and raised James I. Tyler, the orphaned son of Rufus and Margaret Wilson Tyler,  the daughter of James H. and Sarah Hatthorn Wilson and the sister of Nancy Lavanda Wilson (Mrs. John W.) Inman. Margaret married Rufus Tyler in Christian Co. in 1868, and they had one son, James Isom (February 1869) but aren't shown in the county in 1870. Margaret died young, and Rufus remarried in Arkansas. James I. is listed as an orphan boarder with aunt Nancy Ann Inman in the 1880 census. James Tyler remained with the family at least until 1900, when he was living with Nancy Ann's son, Will D. Wilson, in Christian Co.

James I. Tyler married Ella Bell Herndon (Nov. 16, 1884-1957) on March 14, 1907. Ella was the daughter of William Joseph Herndon and Frances N. Hedgpeth. The young couple soon moved to Anadarko, Caddo Co., OK, where they died and are buried at Memory Lane Cemetery.

Nancy, Will and Sarah Elizabeth Wilson, Finley Glover and Mary Louisa Inman moved to Craig Co., OK about 1907 together with Aunt Lizzie Inman Sanders. Nancy died Nov. 12, 1915 while living at Earlsboro, OK.

Nancy, Lizzie and Will are buried in the same cemetery, Garden Grove, near Centerview, OK.

Elkanah Dulaney Inman

(1814-July 7, 1866)

and Sarah Moore

(1819-May 1894)

 

The only son of the Rev. James William and Martha Wilson Inman was Elkanah Dulaney (c. 1814 - July 7, 1866), who was born in Carter Co. He apparently was named for Elkanah Dulaney, a native of southwest VA, who moved to Blountville, Sullivan Co., TN and became its first doctor in 1799; he may have treated much of the Inman family in adjacent Carter Co. and attended its considerable number of births. 

Elkanah was the brother - possibly twin - of Louisa Caroline Inman Glover Wilson Sanders, who was born in December 1813 and also came to Missouri with her second husband, James H. Wilson.

Elkanah married his cousin Sarah Moore (1819 - May 1894) in the 1830s in Giles Co., TN, where the original records were destroyed. Sarah's identity is confirmed by Missouri and Oklahoma death certificates of their children. The death certificate of a daughter, Ann, said her mother was known as "Sally," the common nickname for Sarah, although no other records show this usage.

Sarah was the daughter of James B. Moore (1792, NC), who married Elkanah's cousin Jane Inman, in 1814 in Carter Co., TN, as his first wife.  Jane was the daughter of John Inman Sr. and niece of Elkanah's father James William. James B. Moore lived beside the sprawling Inman compound along Dry Creek in northwest Giles Co., TN, although Sarah's mother died when she was young.

Sarah and Elkanah were prolific parents, with at least nine children. Born in Giles Co. were: James L. (1838), Joseph (1840), Isaac Porter (1841), John Wesley (1842), Andrew Jackson (1844), Martha Jane (1847), and Finley Glover (1849). After they moved to Christian Co., MO, David Marion (1853) and Sarah Ann (1856) joined the family; Elkanah and wife Sarah moved to Missouri in late 1852 while she was pregnant with David.

Elkanah (pronounced el-káy-nee) also was called Elkah (El-kee) or Caney, and he frequently used E. D. in legal documents. A tobacco farmer, Elkanah originally operated as a squatter or a renter in Porter Township, Christian (then Greene) Co. He was assessed taxes for no land in 1856 when he was ranging two horses and five cows in Porter Township. No Greene Co. or federal land office records indicate Elkanah bought land through 1858, and early Christian Co. records were destroyed.⁽²⁰⁾ In 1856, according to the affidavit of his physician, Dr. James Jones, Elkanah fell ill with consumption and was unable to do manual labor or otherwise work the rest of his life. The job of running the farm fell to his teenage sons under Elkanah's supervision.

By 1860, the agriculture census shows that Elkanah's family was working a small acreage - 35, probably rented - with perhaps the greatest efficiency in the county; he sold 1,700 pounds of tobacco the year before and ranked among the 10 most prolific planters in the county. Of his 35 acres, all were "improved"; he also ran six horses, four milk cows, two other cattle, two oxen, 10 sheep and 20 swine. His livestock apparently ran on son James Lafayette's largely unimproved farm.

His tobacco crop was sold to the Ozark tobacco factory ⁽²¹⁾ or Springfield cigar makers. Records from 1860 show he had $4,600 in cash and personal property, including livestock - a small fortune in those days, which he probably reaped from cash sales of his tobacco crop, one of the few cash commodities grown in the area.

Living a mile from the Inmans southwest of Nixa were Francis P. and Nancy Ann Inman Wilson, Elkah's brother-in-law and sister, and his mother Martha, then 80. Sarah worked as a midwife "by profession" and attended the birth of each of Francis and Nancy Ann's four children.

Elkah was reported quite ill in August 1861, when his son John Wesley visited him during the Battle of Wilson's Creek. Pension affidavits indicate that Elkah and Sarah lived, at least in part, on $157 from son Isaac Porter's military pay from September 1862 to 1863. In February 1864, after Francis P. died at DuVall's Bluff, AR, Elkah signed as a witness when Nancy Ann applied for a widow's pension. He provided the probate bond when James H. Wilson, his cousin, brother-in-law and his sons' father-in-law, died.

The affidavit of Mary Wilson (Mrs. James L.) Inman and her sister Margaret B. Wilson says Elkanah died on July 7, 1866; he was about 51.

Sarah quickly began the process to qualify for a widowed mother's pension, based on the 1863 death of son Isaac Porter, a Union soldier. On Aug. 2, 1866, she signed with her mark on the pension application before Greene Co. Circuit Clerk R.A.C. Mack. Witnessing were Edwards in-law John T. Nokes and James J. Faught of the soon-to-be Nixa area. According to the application, Sarah lived "on the way on road leading from Springfield, MO to Mt. Vernon, MO about six miles from the county seat (Ozark) of Christian Co., MO."

In November 1867, Sarah began receiving a Civil War pension of $8 a month, a major sum in the cash-less economy of Christian Co.

The pension records and lack of land deeds and probate files strongly suggest that Elkanah never owned land outright in Christian Co. during his lifetime - in line with the family's longtime pattern of congregate living and joint land ownership. In 1866 and 1867 affidavits, Sarah was described as "entirely destitute."

With her pension income, Sarah bought property after he died on Jan. 21, 1869 from Anderson Clinton Hemphill (1837-1924), whose family had come to Stone Co. from McMinn Co., TN, just north of the James River near modern Highway M.

Sarah in 1870 owned the farm with her two youngest children, David, then 17, and Ann, 14, in the home; son Andrew Jackson Inman was living with his wife Mary in another house on the property or on the next farm. The previous year, she had 20 of her 45 acres in cultivation with the land valued at $800. She had a lone milk cow and raised about $100 in crops.⁽²²⁾

In 1872, Sarah's property included 55 acres (40 acres - NE of NW , Section 22, Township 27, Range 22; 15 acres - Section 15, Township 27, Range 22).

By 1876, also living with Sarah, Andrew and wife Mary were son David M., wife Cynthia (Charles) and their son, Joel Elkanah; David took over operation of the farm.

Sarah is last shown owning personal property - one cow - on the 1881 tax list and more on previous rolls, but disappears in 1882 and following years. County records in 1883 disclose she was still receiving pension payments, but no further local records document her life.

Some of the darkest days of her life came in October 1882 when her son Andrew Jackson and nephew William Daniel Wilson were accused of murdering her son-in-law, Daniel Stephenson, allegedly over his infidelities to her daughter Sarah. On Dec. 6, 1882, she was forced to sign a note -- backed by her entire 55-acre farm -- to attorneys Almus Harrington and T.J. Gideon for representing her son and Wilson in the murder trial. Her son was acquitted, but Wilson was convicted and sentenced to the state penitentiary in Jefferson City. Sarah was faced with raising $690 by March 1883 -- before the trial began -- or the land would be sold from the courthouse steps.

Although the disposition is not certain, Sarah likely lost her farm -- purchased with the pension that her son Isaac's death had earned in the Civil War. In 1884, the Inmans headed for Texas, but at least Sarah, her sons John Wesley Inman and David, and their families returned after the household goods and wagon were lost in a river, along with the family bible. The family cemetery was uprooted and destroyed, supposedly by a Jones family that took possession of the property.

For the next 15 years, the Inmans tried repeatedly to leave the area. Finley Glover or "Bud," John Wesley's son, participated in the 1893 land rush in Oklahoma, but failed to find a stake there. Eventually, Sarah's sons David and Andrew and daughter Sarah all moved to northeastern Oklahoma. Her son Joseph had gone to Texas, but then relocated to Scott Co., AR. Her sisters-in-law Nancy and Louisa Wilson also headed to Oklahoma.

Sarah lived at least until May 4, 1894, when her last pension check was processed for $12 that month. She then officially was dropped from the federal pension rolls.

The burial sites for her and Elkanah are unknown, but they may have been buried in the family graveyard on the original home place. A family burying ground did exist on their son John Wesley's farm, although relatives only remember infants interred there.

The 55-acre tract that belonged to Sarah Inman had passed to A. or H. Baker by 1912. It lies slightly southwest of Nixa, almost within the current city limits.  .

Children of Elkanah D. and Sarah Moore Inman

James Lafayette Inman (1838 - 1864/5)

James Lafayette married Mary N. Wilson on Jan. 26, 1860 before Justice of the Peace George Finley Howard in Christian Co. Mary was one of four daughters of James H. and Sarah Hawthorn Wilson, formerly of Giles Co., TN, three of whom married sons of Elkanah and Sarah Moore Inman.

By 1860, James L. Inman owned 80 largely unimproved acres, worth $400, in Porter Township; he had "improved" only three acres of the farm, where he likely was grazing livestock for himself and his father.

James L. and Mary had one child: Porter Marion Whitfield Inman, born April 23, 1863, according to the little-used Christian County birth register.

In February 1864, James L. joined his father, mother and wife in signing affidavits on behalf of the widow's Civil War pension for Nancy Ann Inman (Mrs. Francis P.) Wilson, his aunt. James L. apparently died in late 1864 or early 1865.

In March 1867, on mother Sarah's pension application, wife Mary Wilson Inman was still using the Inman name but later that year she switched to her maiden name, Wilson.  By 1868, the land had passed into his wife's name; Mary paid taxes on 80 acres in Section 27, Township 27 that eventually became the John Wesley Inman family compound. No earlier tax records are available.

Mary remarried to James Grandison Puryear, son of Seymour Puryear, on Nov. 8, 1868 before Elder Robert Smith Holderby in Christian Co. Puryear had come to Christian Co. from Randolph Co., AR with his childhood friend, Rufus Benjamin Tyler, who was related to the Holderbys of Christian Co. She and Puryear had at least one child, Sarah, born May 15, 1869, but she died in August 1870. Living with them in 1870 were young Porter and Mary's uncle, Joel Wilson, a retarded farm worker.

In 1884, the Puryears moved near Austin, Travis Co., TX in a journey that began with most of the Inman clan, too. However, after an accident that lost the family goods and wagon, the Inmans returned to Missouri. Mary and James Grandison Puryear lived in Travis and Hays Cos., TX the rest of their lives. James died in October 1887, but Mary lived until 1912.

They had three more children after Sarah: Martha Lavanda Puryear (1873-1877); Mary Elizabeth (1875) who married William Robert Dickinson in 1894; and James Edmond (Nov. 28, 1880-Jan. 21, 1937, Travis Co.) who married Sarah Melissa Grumbles in 1906.

Porter Marion Whitfield Inman (April 23, 1863-Sept. 16, 1932, Wilbarger Co., TX) married Della Chisholm (July 26, 1872, Forest, Scott Co., MS-April 1, 1957, Wilbarger Co.) on May 29, 1894 in Austin, and they were living in Hays Co., TX in 1900. They had seven children: James Cornell (1895-1960); Luther Glover (1896-1982); Alta V. (1898-1980); Lillie Novella (1900-1986); Marvin Alvin (1904-1962); Melissa M. (1906-1997); and an adopted daughter Anna Besselman (1920).

Joseph Porter Inman (1840 - after 1900)

The second son of Elkanah and Sarah was overlooked in the 1850 census, but shown as Joshua P. in the 1860 head count. He seemed to disappear mysteriously - because his name actually was Joseph Inman, unlike Joshua, which had no precedents in the family.

Joseph married Sarah Catherine Wilson, the daughter of James H. and Sarah Hawthorn Wilson, on March 5, 1871 before Justice of the Peace Levi C. Faught, and the couple settled onto a Porter Township farm. After her father died in 1862, young Sarah Catherine Wilson moved in with her aunt, Nancy Ann Inman Wilson, until the marriage six years later. But Sarah Catherine also had inherited a Wilson family farm, which was located in extreme southern Porter Township near the James River.

The family was still living in Porter Township through the early 1880s with five children: Ruth L. (1872), John W.D. (1873),  son R.J. (1875), Charles Edward (Feb. 12, 1879) and Mary Jane "Mollie" (August 1881). They joined the broader Inman move to Texas in 1884, but only reached Arkansas before Sarah Catherine gave birth to Lavanda (Nov. 18, 1884-Nov. 28, 1967). They eventually settled in the state capital of Austin, Travis Co. where son William Joseph was born July 1, 1887.

The Texas sojourn proved brief because Joseph, Sarah and the family had moved to Scott Co., AR by 1900. Most of the children settled in northeastern Oklahoma and married there.

Isaac Porter Inman (1841 - Sept. 5, 1863)

Isaac Porter died from diarrhea in a Bloomfield, MO federal army hospital while serving in Co. D, 8th MO Cavalry since September 1862. His death, followed by Elkanah's, qualified Sarah for a mother's pension.  

Isaac P. had served in the Christian Co. Home Guard in 1861 and was mustered in July 28, 1862 as a corporal in Co. A, 72nd Regiment, Enrolled MO Militia with Capt. Jackson Ball of Nixa. He was apparently transferred to Co. D of the 8th MO Cavalry Volunteers.

John Wesley Inman (Oct. 11, 1842-March 7, 1927)

(see separate section)

Andrew Jackson Inman (March 11, 1845 - March 22, 1922)

Jack was married to Mary Estes, born in 1845 in Arkansas, before Joseph W. Faught, justice of the peace, on Jan. 31, 1864. Jack served in Company G of the 24th Infantry Volunteers and Company I of the 21st Infantry Volunteers for the Union.

Any wealth Jack had seems to have centered on his personality; he is remembered as an endearing charmer. Jack worked as a tenant farmer, living for decades close to his mother Sarah. He also was remembered in the stories about the murder of his brother-in-law Daniel Stephenson; Jack was tried for first-degree murder, but acquitted by a Christian Co. jury. His legal expenses, however, seem to have cost his mother her farm.

Around 1900, Jack, sister Ann Stephenson, brother David and their spouses moved in a wagon train to Oklahoma and signed over their land to John Wesley. But Jack moved back and forth between the two states. Jack and Mary were living in Porter Township near the John W. Inman family compound after 1910 and earlier resided in a home near McConnell Cemetery, according to Mae Inman McConnell; one of these homes burned.

Both Mary and Jack died in Oklahoma; Jack is said to have died at the home of his nephew, Joel Elkanah Inman, David's son, in Nowata, OK. They are buried in Steel Camp or Oglesby Cemetery.

Martha Jane Inman (1847-after 1860)

Martha Jane appears in the 1860 Christian Co. census, but not thereafter. She may have married in the Civil War, during which the records are lost because of arson at the courthouse. A Martha Inman married Aaron Flood in Stone or Christian Cos., MO on Dec. 20, 1878, but this woman was the daughter of Andrew Jackson Inman, the son of John Inman and Hannah Simmerly who married Sarah Ann Stephenson.

Finley Glover (Oct. 22, 1848 ⁽²⁵⁾ - Oct. 4, 1922)

Finley Glover was named for an uncle, the first husband of aunt Louisa Caroline Inman, who died in the Mexican-American War in 1846. Finley Glover enrolled in the Missouri State Militia in 1866, and his records -- unless they are wrong -- show he was only 5 feet tall with dark hair, blue eyes and fair complexion at age 18.  The notation may have meant that he was 5-feet-10.

He went by "Glover" and married first to the older Mary Frances Carden (1843 - March 4, 1876), the daughter of Thomas Jefferson Carden (1804 - 1871) and Elizabeth Warren Coker (1821 - March 28, 1887) of Boone Co., AR. Mary Frances had been born in Boone County to a father from Georgia and a mother from North Carolina. The Cardens, however, had moved to AR from Giles Co. A Wilson-Inman-Carden family researcher, Alice Faye Brown, has been unable to determine whether Glover and Mary Frances married in Arkansas, Missouri or California.

The Carden family emigrated to California in the fall of 1869, and Glover left behind his Inman family to move with his bride. In California, the Carden-Inman families settled in first Tulare and then Kern Co., mountain country where farming and mining held sway.

Glover and Mary Frances moved into a home next to her parents in Visalia Township, Tulare Co. where he farmed (and registered to vote), and the young people soon had a daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Inman, born in August 1871. By 1876, Glover and his family had moved to Kern Co. where Mary Frances died at age 32; she is buried in Weldon Cemetery.

Glover by 1880 had moved in with his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Carden, in Kern Co. - a motley pioneer household that also included Elizabeth's son and daughter, two grandchildren, another child, Elizabeth's mother Frances Coker and an Indian, who worked as a laborer on the farm. But little Sarah Elizabeth Inman was boarding with a Nailor family in 1880.

Glover returned to Missouri that fall and married Mary Louisa Wilson (March 20, 1858 - July 28, 1921) on Feb. 6, 1881 before Justice of the Peace G. W. Nokes. Mary, called "Lousy," was the daughter of Francis P. and Nancy Ann Inman Wilson; Louisa and Glover were first cousins. Glover and Louisa had three children: May (April 1884), Walter (September 1890) and a third child who did not survive infancy.

Around 1907, Glover and Louisa followed their children to Craig Co., OK, where they moved in with May and her husband, Thomas Robison, a native of Illinois.

Glover and Mary Louisa attended the Church of Christ (Disciples).

Mary Louisa died on July 28, 1921 from influenza at Covington, Garfield Co., OK.

Just days later, on Aug. 1, 1921, her husband was baptized and joined the Christian Church. Finley Glover Inman died at Covington Oct. 4, 1922 at his daughter's home after a 10-day illness from obstruction of the bowels, according to his death certificate. According to the local newspaper, his last words were: "I am ready to meet my Savior."⁽²⁶⁾

Finley Glover's services were conducted in the home, and the International Order of Odd Fellows, a lodge where he belonged, conducted graveside services. He and Mary Louisa's graves share a rose-colored marble stone at Covington Community Cemetery.

Finley Glover's daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Inman, married her double cousin, William Daniel "Bill" Wilson, on May 27, 1892 before Justice of the Peace M. R. Sellars in Nixa.  Sarah Elizabeth, known as "Sis" or "Lizzie," appears to have stayed in California when her father returned to MO, based on a March 10, 1892 letter that the author, a maternal aunt, advised her "to burn up" because it was "plainer" than any other written before. The ending of the letter was destroyed, but the beginning passed down in the family. The maternal aunt noted that another aunt, Helen Vandergraw (Mrs. William) Carden, "has tried to slur you every since you left, and that's not all she started to get away with (__) all the property that was her intentions."

The slurs undoubtedly concern Lizzie's pregnancy out of wedlock in California that led to her move to Missouri and reunion with her father's family. The letter is dated March 10, 1892; Lizzie's first daughter, Martha Anna Frances, was born April 1; and Lizzie married as an Inman - with no indication of divorce or widowhood - to William Daniel Wilson in Nixa on May 29, 1892.

Lizzie and Bill seem to each have come to the union tainted in the community - she by a child out of wedlock, he by a murder conviction. The couple married just after Bill was released from prison for his second-degree murder conviction in the death of his uncle, Daniel Stephenson. The first personal record of Bill comes not in a document, but a photo, likely taken in 1881 when he went to California to help bring his cousin Finley Glover and young daughter Sarah Elizabeth back to MO. The portrait, taken in Los Angeles, shows a strikingly handsome man with piercing eyes.

The next family photo, taken in the 1890s, shows a grey ghost of a man after the trials and deprivation of life in the Missouri State Penitentiary.

Though signs point to at least family forgiveness and even support in the case, Bill quickly tried to move the family to the Indian Territory, if only to escape what must have been deep-seated community animosities, especially among neighbors such as the Stephensons. He was looking for a fresh start.

In a rare letter preserved by descendants, he wrote his wife from Hunnewell, KS on Sept. 10, 1893 as he was preparing the "run" into the Cherokee "Strip" or "Outlet" that took place six days later. He wrote:

Hunne Well, Kansas

Sept. 10th 93

My Dear Darlin Wife

Once more I seat myself to drop you a few lines to let you know I am well and truly hope this will find you all well. I am now at Honey Well, Kansas spending Sunday and I wish I could spend it with my two babies. We camped 5 miles west of hear last night. Shugar this is the prettiest country I ever saw and I think a good one if I an lucky anough to get a house heare. I know I will (be) satisfide and I ... will be the ... will ... heare.

Hun I don't no just how I will make the race yet. I am very sorry I did not bring Lattie. If I had her heare I would feel sure of a hours (horse). If I hafta hier a horse it will cost me $10 or $15 dollars. We talke like running in our wagons at times. It is unsettled yet.

Dol (Doll), you can write two letters to me and address one to Arkansas City Kansas. This address is right and blotted the first, so you might not under stand it. Sugar, be sure to write to both (places) so I will be sure (to get the) letter from (you before) I start home. I don't no just which place I will be at. I want a letter from you next Friday (the day before the "run"). I will be at one or the other towns on that day.

All the boys is well and satisfide with ther (their) trip whether they get a home or not all but me. If I don't get a home I won't be satisfide staying a way so long from you.

Bud ⁽²⁷⁾  (Finley Glover Inman, son of John Wesley and Nancy Lavada Wilson Inman) ses for me to tell you if you see any of his folks for you to tell them to wright as I have ask you to wright. Darlin, I will close for this time hoping to see you soon. From your true (love?) and send a kis to (Mama and Lizz)ie and lots of (?) two babys. Tell Mama and aunt I want to see them. No more this time. W. D. Wilson

To his frustration, Bill returned to MO without a stake, and he may have tried again during later "runs" and lotteries when land was opened to white settlers in the Indian Territory. Numerous young men and couples exited Christian Co. for Oklahoma during this period, although many returned.

By 1900, the Wilson family was living in Porter Township with Eliza Inman Glover Wilson Sanders or "Aunt Lizzie," an 86-year-old widow and sister of Elkanah Inman and Nancy Ann Inman Wilson.

Lizzie had an independent source of income, either from the estate of her third husband, William Sanders, or a pension based on the service of Sanders or, more likely, second husband James H. Wilson. In 1905, Bill Wilson filed suit against her in Christian Co. Circuit Court.⁽²⁸⁾ On Sept. 21, 1905 the Ozark Tribune reported that the case had been arbitrated and the settlement confirmed; Bill and Sarah Elizabeth were awarded $385 and court costs. The suit apparently tapped Lizzie's funds for repayment of the room, board and other expenses that Bill incurred

Accounts of Lizzie's personality have not been passed down; she may have been a penny-pinching, demanding crone who provoked the suit after many years of generous support by Bill and the Wilson family. However, the suit - once of a common nature on the frontier - contributes to the Jekyll-and-Hyde picture of Bill Wilson.

Although all the children were born in Missouri, as late as 1907, the family was living in Craig Co., OK by the 1910 census. Joining them was the 90-year-old mother, Nancy Ann. Aunt Lizzie moved to Oklahoma, too, but rather than making her home with the Wilsons, she now lived with May Inman and Tom Robison and her grandnephew, Finley Glover and Mary Louisa Inman.

Bill Wilson died Feb. 23, 1913 - the 49th anniversary of his father Francis P.'s death - southwest of Prague, OK in Pottawatomie Co. That area had attracted numerous Christian Co. settlers like the Stifflers.  He is buried in the Garden Grove Cemetery across the road from Garden Grove Missionary Baptist Church, near Centerview, which the family attended. His mother Nancy and aunt Lizzie are buried there , too.

After Will's death, by 1917, Sarah Elizabeth moved to Drumright in Creek Co., OK, where she ran a boarding house until her death on Dec. 14, 1920. Two of her children were still living at home, and they may have been taken in by Aunt Ann Inman Stephenson. Sarah Elizabeth lies in the Masonic Cemetery in Drumright.

The couple had nine children:

n      Martha Anna Frances (April 1, 1892, Nixa - April 7, 1961, San Diego) married 1) Fred Cole in Pottawatomie Co., OK on March 16, 1913 and 2) James Monroe Cagle Dec. 16, 1920 in Drumright, Creek Co., OK. She is buried in Ft. Rose Cross, San Diego.

n      Harvey Daniel (May 1895, Nixa - ?, CA) married 1) Lucy Brown on Dec. 23, 1916 in Tecumseh, Pottawatomie Co., OK and 2) Edith ?.

n      Artelia "Artie" (Feb. 5, 1897, Nixa - March 7, 1950, Oklahoma City) married James Lester Sikes on Dec. 25, 1913 in Prague, Lincoln Co., OK. She is buried in Garden Grove Cemetery, Pottawatomie Co., OK.

n      Lester "Les" Finley (July 24, 1902, Nixa - Oct. 2, 1957, Tulsa, OK) married Mamie Czrena Hardison. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Claremore, OK.

n      Lillian Mae (July 24, 1903, Nixa - May 20, 1975, Bakersfield, CA) married 1) Jess Castello on April 15, 1917 in Sapulpa, Creek Co., OK and 2) Jess Thompson on Sept. 13, 1922 in Drumright. She is buried in Hillcrest Memorial, Bakersfield.

n      Sylvia "Silvy" (Sept. 28, 1907, Big Cabin, OK - June 26, 1972, Stroud, OK) married Floyd James Brown on Dec. 12, 1927 in Holdenville, Hughes Co., OK. She is buried in Stroud Cemetery. Sylvia and Floyd had four children: Opal Fay (who died in infancy and is buried in Garden Grove Cemetery), Freda June, Carroll Gene and Billy Floyd. Billy married Alice Faye Weaver, a descendent of Missouri Weaver and Allee families from Moniteau Co., who has devoted hundreds of hours to the Inman-Wilson genealogy and family history.

n      Roy Alva (Sept. 9, 1911, Big Cabin - June 17, 1975, Oklahoma City) married Ruth Evalina Seaton in Okemah, Okfuskee Co., OK on April 13, 1937. He is buried in Sunnylawn Cemetery, Oklahoma City.

n     Two children whose names were not recorded and who died in infancy after 1900.

May Inman (April 1884 - May 16, 1931), the daughter of Finley Glover and Mary Louisa Wilson Inman, married Thomas Robison (1880 - 1955), a farmer from Illinois, after 1900. The couple moved to Oklahoma by 1906, and they had two daughters: Goldy (1906) and Ula Neoma (1908). By the 1920s, Robison was working in the oil fields as a rig builder. May died in Oklahoma City in 1931 from pellagra with complications from bronchitis and perhaps acute pneumonia. She is buried in Covington Community Cemetery next to her parents. Although he bought the three plots, Tom Robison moved to California, where he died and was buried in 1955.

Ula Neoma Robison married Glenn Perrin, who is also buried at the Covington Cemetery. Neoma lived in Tyler, TX.

Walter (September 1890 - before 1917) apparently never married. He moved with his parents and sister to Oklahoma in the early 1900s. At age 19, Walter was living with his brother-in-law Tom Robison in Craig County. Walter died in Drumright, but his burial site is unknown.

David Marion Inman (May 10, 1853 - Jan. 21, 1919)

David married Cynthia E. Charles (May 10, 1858-Sept. 18, 1931) on Jan. 4, 1875 in Boone Co., AR before JP Jesse L. Ragsdale. Cynthia and her brother were orphans, born in Louisiana, and she married with the permission of her uncle, "who raised her, as an orphan," according to the marriage record in Boone Co.  Other records, though, suggest she was the daughter of John K. Charles (Jan. 2, 1831, White Co., TN-Oct. 22, 1879, Faulkner, AR) and Sarah E. Brady, who did die when her daughter was young.

David likely met Cynthia on visits to relatives in Boone Co., but they have not been identified.

By the spring of 1880, he was running his mother's farm southwest of Nixa with Cintha and children Joel Elkanah, 4, William J., 3, and John G., five months. Living with them was mother Sarah at age 63; on either side were Aunt Nancy Inman Wilson and brother Jack Inman. No one in David's household could read or write, according to the census, although David had been attending school in 1870.

In 1884, David joined his brother John Wesley - along with brother Joseph, perhaps his mother and the Puryear in-laws - in moving to TX, where at least one son, Thomas Jefferson, was born. By late 1885 or 1886, David and Cintha had returned their family to MO, where another son was born.

Despite the interruption of the move and possible loss of the family farm in 1883, David appears to have been extraordinarily prosperous, if only because he had extensive livestock holdings, compared to others in the area. Tax records in 1892 show he was raising three horses, 22 cows, 17 sheep and 15 hogs - a major expansion over his herds 10 years before. Some of the livestock, however, may have been jointly held, in the Inmans' communal tradition, and simply reported and taxed against David.

In 1893, much of the Inman-Wilson family tried to move to Oklahoma, and David had succeeded by 1896 when his last son, Porter Moore, was born. The family settled on a farm in the southeast corner of Nowata Co., about 8 miles east of the town of Nowata near New Alluwe, OK and 60 miles southwest of Joplin, MO.

David and Cintha had 10 children:

n      Joel Elkanah (Nov. 22, 1875 -Dec. 1, 1943) married Phoebe Louisiana "Lula" Robertson. In 1910, Joel E. is shown in Rogers Co., OK, adjacent to Nowata on the south. He was married to "Edith" with four children: Nettie (1897), Phoebe (1898), James (1903) and Nora (1906), all born in OK. He is buried in Nowata.

n      William "Willy"  or "Jack" Jackson (1877, MO), who is said to have married, but is shown in 1910 as a single man with a brother and sister living in Craig Co., OK, adjacent to Nowata Co. on the east. Jack died in California.

n      John Grandison (1880, MO - Nov. 17, 1942) married Ella Hunt (1885-1953) and is buried in Nowata Co. The couple was living there in 1910 with five children: Lewis E. (1899), Oscar (1901), Ernest (1904), Clarence (1906) and Lillie (1908). (These children have Maynard-Hunt family names from Christian Co., MO; Ella may have been a member of that large family.) John G. is buried in Nowata.

n      James Layfatte (June 19, 1883 - March 6, 1955) married Ethel Evelyn Tatum. In 1910, they were living in Rogers Co., OK near brother Joel E. and with children Mary (1903), James (1905), Florence (1907) and Ira (1910).

n      Thomas Jefferson (1885, TX-1946) married Sophia and, by 1910, they were living in Craig Co., OK with son Roman K. (1910). Tom is buried in Chelsea, OK.

n      Leslie (1888) married Matt after 1910.

n      Two daughters - Rose Etta (July 16, 1890-April 2, 1970) married James Harmon "Barker" Dildine, and she is buried in Nowata; Lula married Ora Tate, and she is buried in Nowata.

n      One daughter known as "Pearlie" (Aug. 15, 1889-November 1985) lived with brothers Leslie and Willy in 1910 in Craig Co., OK.

n      Porter Marion (1896, OK - Jan. 5, 1955) married Florence Comfort after 1910 and is buried in Nowata.

n      A dead infant.

David's decision to name his eldest son Joel Elkanah is a clue to the identity of Martha (Wilson) Inman as a sister of Joel Wilson Sr. If David was not related to Joel Wilson (b, 1785, NC), there are no previous Joels in David Inman's family and no reason to combine this name with his father's for a firstborn son.

David died at age 65 at 5 p.m. Jan. 21, 1919 from "chronic lesioning of heart," according to Dr. J. R. Collins, his personal physician who signed the death certificate. His family knew virtually nothing about David's ancestry except that his father had been born in Tennessee. He was buried in the "new addition" to the Nowata Cemetery under the direction of Karl H. Huddleston, undertaker, on the following day. Cintha was still alive at the time.

Cintha died on Sept. 18, 1931, and she, too, is buried in Nowata.

David's descendants now live in Claremore and Vinita, OK.

Sarah Ann Inman Stephenson (Feb. 28, 1856 - Aug. 13, 1938)

Ann married Daniel Stephenson (1846 - Oct. 21, 1882) on Oct. 4, 1871 before JP Levi C. Faught. Daniel was the Missouri-born son of Matthew and Elizabeth Baker Stephenson, who both came from Roane Co., TN, on a wagon train c. 1843. The younger Stephenson served in the Union cavalry, rising to the rank of captain.

He stood 5-feet-4 with auburn hair, dark eyes and fair complexion.

Ann and Daniel owned a 40-acre farm (SE, NE of Section 10, Township 27, Range 22) on Guin Prairie, in the area dominated by the Edwards, McConnell and Faught families west of Nixa, at least by 1875. The farm lay across the road from the 240-acre spread owned by Mary D. (Mrs. Alexander) McConnell and operated by her sons, John A. and George W., northwest of Nixa.

Daniel was murdered in October 1882. In a neighborhood version of the story, Daniel Stephenson was unfaithful to his wife, and he paid the ultimate price for tainting Ann's honor.

Daniel, in an old Inman family story, had been out that evening with brother-in-law Jack Inman and William Daniel Wilson. As Robert Inman told the story, the three men traveled to Springfield and drank heavily; on the way home, Will Wilson clubbed Stephenson to death with a wagon standard.

In another version, two men - one of them Will - tied Daniel to a team of horses on the old Harrison Keltner farm, immediately southeast of McConnell Cemetery, and after whipping them, let the horses drag Daniel through "new ground" full of tree stumps.

According to Springfield newspapers, Robert's version comes closest to the truth, although it is still flawed. Newspaper accounts of the day, of course, were based often on hearsay rather than official records and tended toward sensational aspects of the cases. Daniel Stephenson was murdered on the evening of Saturday, Oct. 21, 1882, and the Springfield Express on Oct. 27, 1882 carried this report:

Ozark, MO, Oct. 23, 1882 - A brutal murder was committed five miles northwest of here last Saturday (Oct. 21) evening.

Jack Inman and Bill Wilson returned from Springfield by way of the Faught school house, where a Greenback (political party) meeting was being held. They inquired for one Daniel Stevenson and asked him into their wagon. He consented, and this was the last seen of him as they drove away. His absence causing some uneasiness, a search was made Sunday morning. His coat was found first, then his hat and this led to discovery of his dead body in the brush. A family feud is at the bottom of the murder as Inman is the brother-in-law of Stevenson.

The murderers are at large, and a strong posse of citizens is now being organized here, and the county will be scoured for the fugitives. The excitement is intense, and popular indignation is greatly aroused. (Since the above was written, it has been learned that Wilson and Inman beat Stevenson to death with wooden clubs.)

On Nov.3, 1882, the Express reported that "the murderers of Dan Stevenson are still at large, notwithstanding the active measures (a posse) to effect their capture." A report on the apprehension of Inman and Wilson couldn't be located, but they may have been fugitives for months. Christian Co. fugitives - and even related witnesses - often fled to Arkansas, where the Inmans had relatives and in-laws. Robert Inman told a story about the case that involved flight to Arkansas.

According to court records, on March 5, 1883, James R. Vaughan was appointed special prosecutor to try charges of first-degree murder against Jack Inman and Wilson. Nevertheless, Sarah Moore Inman had taken out a note on Dec. 6 to obtain legal counsel for her son and had only until March to pay it, or lose her farm.

The actual trial coincided with a spate of local murders, including the change of venue to Christian County for John (Jack) Griffin who shot and killed John P. Conroy in a Springfield saloon on Feb. 28, 1883. Dominating the front pages was the bank robbery trial of Frank James in Gallatin, MO.

The Express, incensed about the local killings, editorialized about Inman, Wilson and Griffin: "Four red-handed murderers were taken from the county jail here last Monday morning (Aug. 27) to Ozark for trial in the Christian County Circuit Court. All these crimes were atrocious murders, and if the murderers escape the gallows, it will appear to the unbiased mind that capital punishment has but a small chance."

According to the Springfield Patriot, prosecutor Vaughn was assisted by S. H. "Pony" Boyd and D. Payne; Boyd, a former congressman and ambassador to Siam (Thailand), was a cousin of the McConnells of Nixa. The defense rested with Almus Harrington of Ozark, Capt. W. D. Hubbard, T. J. Gideon and J. M. Patterson, the latter two from longtime Christian Co. families. Almus Harrington had married a Nixa woman.

Despite the newspapers' calls for capital punishment, Inman was found not guilty, but Wilson was pronounced guilty of second-degree murder in August 1883 in Christian Co. Circuit Court. He was sentenced to the Missouri State Penitentiary for 10 years. A full report on the murder trials in Christian County was reserved for Griffin, who was convicted, sentenced to 45 years and hauled to Jefferson City for imprisonment with Wilson.

A 23-year-old farmer at the time, the 5-foot-4, 145-pound Wilson entered the State Penitentiary on Sept. 10, 1883. Prison records show he had a 9 -inch foot, dark hair, blue eyes and light complexion; he was clean shaven. He had no previous criminal record and could read and write, but he was "intemperate"; in other words, he drank. Wilson's mother lived in Nixa, and he had scars on his left knee cap and over his right eye, according to prison records.

Wilson gave his religious affiliation as "Campbellite," or Disciples of Christ.

Wilson's behavior in prison must have been less than model. Missouri officials at the time were intent on keeping the prison population to a minimum and usually invoked the three-quarters law to parole an inmate who behaved passably earlier that the full sentence required. For Wilson, his three-quarters time expired on March 8, 1890, but he was not released. Gov. David R. Francis waited until Aug. 20, 1890 to pardon Wilson, release him and restore his citizenship rights.

Will Wilson's role in the murder came as a surprise to his descendants in Oklahoma, but they had heard stories that he "drank quite a lot" while younger although nothing of a murder conviction and prison term. The Brown family in Stroud, OK, says his daughter, only age 6 when Wilson died in 1913, almost certainly was unaware of the prison term.

Despite the newspaper coverage, the "family feud" cited in the Springfield weeklies was never explained. Robert Inman and several neighbors recounted stories about Daniel Stephenson's infidelity(ies), and Bill Wilson appears to have been the most agitated by Stephenson's behavior.

The family and neighbors, other than the Stephensons, eventually must have come to view the murder as proper hill vengeance. Bill Wilson's cousins, John Wesley Inman and wife Nancy Lavanda Wilson, named their son after him in 1890 while he was still serving time in the penitentiary. Bill continued living in the community for another 15 years without apparent incident although he did attempt to move, unsuccessfully, to Oklahoma soon after his release.

Daniel was buried in Stephenson Cemetery, just west of his property. In the mid-20th century, his was the only stone remaining there, although others had been in place at one time, including those for his parents.

Ann Stephenson had three children by Daniel: Sarah Elizabeth or Lizzie (December 1873); Martha Frances (1876 or before) and Alice (February 1881).

Widow Ann Stephenson was living between Joe Frank and Harvey McConnell in 1900 with daughters Lizzie "Crastletow," a 26-year-old widow, and Alice. According to that census, Ann and Lissie also were caring for a grandson, Calvin "Crastletoe" or Castlow (November 1892). She was not a widow. Lissie had married Alan "Castilow" of Nixa on Dec. 3, 1891, according to their license, but they divorced. The husband's name had many variations, including Castoe, Casto, Costlow and Castletoe, and disappears from the county after 1900.

Alan was the son of Jacob and Amanda McCafferty Castillo/Castoe; their son "Allie, single," born March 1872, is shown in Jacob's home in 1900 after he remarried to Melvina Pope, daughter of Leroy and Amanda Pope and sister of Rebecca Jane Pope McConnell.

Alice died shortly on Nov. 18, 1900 while she was engaged to John Dixon, a neighbor, who promised her never to marry another - and he didn't, living his entire life as a bachelor across the road from the late Robert Inman's home.

Ann moved to Oklahoma after 1900 with Lissie and grandson Calvin. In October 1922, she was living in Sperry, just north of Tulsa.

She moved further north by 1937, when she was living in Oglesby, Washington Co., OK and contracted senile dementia, probably what today is known as Alzheimer's disease; she also suffered for arteriosclerosis. On July 31, 1938, she sought medical help for uremia and died of the acute illness on Aug. 13. Ann likely was living with her grandson, Calvin Castlow (his spelling), then of Oglesby, the informant on her death certificate.

She is buried in the old Steele Camp Cemetery, now known as the Oglesby Cemetery, with her brother Jack.