Hannibal Kimball - Early Years

Early Years

Born in Oxford County, Maine to family of Methodist wheel-wrights. He was the fifth boy of 10 children by his father, Peter Kimball, a highly regarded wheel-wright, and his mother, Betsey Emerson.

He stayed in that and the carriage business moving first to Norway, Maine then later to the largest carriage manufacturing center, New Haven, Connecticut where he partnered with his brothers to form a company that was later taken over by G .& D. Cook & Co Carriage Makers., Kimball was made partner in the company after the take-over. Many of their customers were in the South, and after the beginning of the American Civil War many debts went unpaid, and the business failed.

The carriage company flourished, and by 1860 had over 300 employees. Kimball and George Cook also invented a top-prop for carriages. The patent was issued on December 27, 1859

In 1858, Kimball married Mary Cook, the eldest daughter of his business partner, George Cook. Kimball then moved to Central City, Colorado as the agent for a mining company and regained his fortune. While in Colorado, he met George Pullman who hired him in 1866 to establish the Pullman Company's sleeping car lines in the South. Initially to be headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, he decided on Atlanta, moving his family there in 1867.

Kimball was the father of American printer Ingalls Kimball, born April 2, 1874 with the same full name, Hannibal Ingalls Kimball.