Nelson Inman was in DeKalb Co., IL in 1855 and in
Kane Co., IL in 1856. He moved to IA about 1858. In 1860 Nelson and his brothers Loren and
Joseph were apparently living on adjacent farms in Union Twsp., Floyd Co., IA since their
dwellings were enumerated in succession inthe census schedule for that year. Nelson was
present at the first school meeting in Scott Tp., Floyd Co., IA whichwas held no later
that April 1864, and he appears on the earliest extant assessor's list (1866) for that
township. The 1870 Census, however, again gives Nelson's residence as Union Tp., which is
adjacent to Scott Tp. Nelson was a farmer. He died about 1872, probably at Sheffield, IA,
and is said to have expired from exposure during an attempt to get a doctor for either his
son oa neighbor's family.
Nelson's wife, Laura, had eight years of schooling. Family tradition
tells of a time during an Indian scare when Laura and her children were living southeast
of Sheffield. She called in her sons, buried her new cook stove with her dishes and silver
inside, and moved in with Jacob Zimmerman (father of Mary Zimmerman, Laura's
daughter-in-law, 1 1/2 miles away. Laura was said to have been almost
fearless. Once when returning home alone through the woods at night after helping butcher,
the timber wolves approached her so closely that she was forced to throw the meat she was
carrying to them in order to reach home safely.
In 1879 Nelson's wife, Laura, purchased 40 acres adjoining the 40 acres
she already owned in West Fork Twsp., about a mile SE of Sheffield. She sold one of the 40
acre parcels in 1883 to D. A. Inman, presumably her son, Daniel Alonzo Inman. Laura was
still in the Sheffield area in 1900 but later homesteaded in the Dakotas where she, her
daughter Nancy, and a grandson, Fred Underkoffler, built cabins together at the juncture
of three quater sections. They lost essentially all their possessions in a prairie fire
about 1910. Laura and Nancy moved from Emmetsburg, IA to Warroad, MN in 1915. Both died in
a house fire at Warroad May 7, 1916.