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ISAAC ICKELHEIMER, banker, a native of Frankfort-on-the-Main, who died in
New York city in his fifty-eighth year, April 27, 1893, while the great naval demon¬
stration in the harbor in honor of the Columbian celebration was in progress, came
to America when a lad of fifteen and began life first as a clerk, and then as a merchant
in the jewelry trade. After 1873 he spent three years in Europe. Upon his return, he
■engaged in private banking with his father-in-law, A. S. Heidelbach, in the firm of
Heidelbach, Ickelheimer & Co. He was a clear headed, competent and careful man
and slowly amassed a fortune. The Chamber of Commerce admitted him to member¬
ship and he was a director of The Importers' & Traders' National Bank, and one of the
founders and directors of The Fifth Avenue Bank. Henry R. Ickelheimer succeeded
him in the firm.

JOHN HAMILTON INMAN, merchant, was born Oct. 23, 1844, in Jefferson
county, Tenn., and is the second son of Shadrack W. and Jane Martin Inman. His
father was of English lineage and his mother of Scotch-Irish descent. From this
sturdy ancestry, John H. Inman inherited robust physique and unusual brain po'v\''er.
His father was a rich planter in Tennessee before the war, besides being a banker of
pronounced success. The family have been stanch Presbyterians through several
generations, and the subject of this sketch is himself a consistent member of that
denomination.

Mr. Inman's scholastic education was ended with the completion of his academic
course. He declined collegiate advantages because of impatience to begin his business
life. Employment came to him first in the position of an ordinary clerk in a bank, of
which his uncle was president, in a small Georgia town. So efficient did he prove him¬
self, that at the age of sixteen he was made assistant cashier. He resigned this
position before he was eighteen years of age, to enlist in the Confederate army with
the ist Regiment of Tennessee Cavalry, and served faithfully to the close of the war.

On returning home, he found poverty where he had left wealth, and widespread
devastation in place of prosperit}'' and plenty. His father's fortune had been turned
topsy-turvy, and the problem of life through the violence of war had become serious
indeed. The impoverished South offered no encouragement, and Mr. Inman, with
nothing in his pocket except a soldier's parole, came to New York" to make a new
start in life. From that day to this, his career has been a campaign of usefulness as
well as a triumphal march.

On coming to New York in September, 1865, he secured a clerkship in a cotton
house, which position he held for three years, when he was admitted to full partnership
in the firm. Tw^o years thereafter, he organized the now internationally well-known
house of Inman, Swann& Co., cotton commission merchants, and has been the presiding
genius over the destinies of that firm from the hour of its organization to the present
time. About ten years after the house of Inman, Swann & Co. had been established,
Mr. Inman turned his attention to the railroad interests of the South and rapidly went
to the very foremost position in the management of Southern railroads. Latterly, he
has almost completely withdrawn from that field of operations in order to enjoy more