Ralph Inman (1713-1788)
Merchant, of Boston & Cambridgeport, Massachusetts
He was born in Yorkshire, England, and came of America circa 1740. He was a successful merchant and in 1756 purchased two plots of land (180-acres) in what is now Cambridgeport and built a house (see images) on the current site of the Cambridge City Hall. He was a founder and the first Treasurer of Christ Church and nearby Inman Street and Inman Square are named for him. During the Revolution, he remained loyal to the Crown and temporarily moved back to England. Nonetheless, the Inmans were one of the few Tory families whose property was returned to them after the Revolution. Ten years after the death of his first wife in 1761 he remarried Elizabeth, sister of James Murray and the widow of James Smith (d.1769), the wealthy owner of a sugar refinery in Boston. By his first wife he had several children who died in infancy and early childhood, but three survived to adulthood (listed).
