Thomas Inch Biography


	This biography appears on pages 498-501 in "History of Dakota Territory" 
	by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				THOMAS INCH. 

	Thomas Inch, who is engaged in general farming on section 9, 
Gayville township, Yankton county, came to Dakota territory in the 
spring of 1868, reaching Yankton on the 12th of April. Great, indeed, 
have been the changes which have since been wrought by time and man and 
Mr. Inch has ever been an interested witness of the events which have 
occurred bringing the state to its present condition of progress and 
prosperity. 

	He was born in County Derry, Ireland, in August, 1836, and after 
spending the first twenty years of his life on the Emerald isle came to 
America in the spring of 1856 He left his native land on the 17th of 
May and crossed from Londonderry to Liverpool, where he embarked on the 
sailing ship, Albert Galliton, for New York, the voyage covering six 
weeks and three days. Mr. Inch went to New England and soon afterward 
found work on a farm in Connecticut. He was employed at farm labor in 
that state for eight years and afterward spent an additional four years 
in Greenwich, Connecticut, at the country place of a wealthy New 
Yorker. However, the west attracted him and he made his way by rail to 
Sioux City, Iowa, then the western terminus of the line. From that 
point he proceeded by stage to Yankton, leaving Sioux City at five 
o'clock in the morning and reaching his destination at eight o'clock in 
the evening. It was a long, hard day's ride in which they changed 
horses four times.  

	Two weeks after his arrival Mr. Inch filed on his present place 
under the homestead law and has here remained continuously since. He 
worked for a time in Yankton for Chase & English and later for Major De 
Witt, who was agent for the Crow Creek Reservation and kept his family 
on a country place at Yankton. During the two years he was employed at 
Yankton Mr. Inch planted trees on his claim and built a small house. A 
few years later, when the flood submerged the valley, water stood four 
and a half feet deep in his little cabin and he and his brothers lived 
for four weeks in the upper part of the granary. This flood was 
especially disastrous to him, causing him the loss of all but thirty 
out of about two hundred head of cattle, horses and hogs at a time when 
he was not so well able to endure the loss as he would be at the 
present day. One can imagine the consternation with which the settlers 
saw the water steadily rising and realized what destruction it must 
mean to their farms, to their stock and their homes. Mr. Inch and his 
brothers built a raft and thus navigated from the granary to the shanty 
for supplies and then back to the granary. He suffered his greatest 
loss in the flood by the death of a brother, who perished in the waters 
while trying to make his way from his own cabin to that of his brother 
Thomas. 

	There were eleven sons and daughters in the Inch family: Jane, 
Mary Ann and Margaret, all of whom are married and living in Ireland; 
Thomas, whose name introduces this review; Sarah, the wife of William 
Fuller, a resident of Seattle, Washington; Joseph, who perished from 
cold and weakness in the flood; Kate, the wife of Joseph West, of 
Volin, South Dakota; William, who died in the hospital on Staten 
Island, New York, at the time of the emigration of the family to the 
new world; John, who is engaged in farming in County Derry, Ireland; 
Major, who married Annie Erickson, a daughter of Elif Erickson, an 
early settler of Yankton county; and Matilda, the wife of Henry West, 
still a resident of Ireland Major Inch and his wife have five children, 
Thomas, Mary Ann, John Edwin, Joseph Merrill and William Henry. The 
family live with our subject. 

	Thomas Inch is a member of the Episcopal church and in polities 
is a democrat. He served for six years as county coroner but has filled 
no other offices. He not only passed through the period of the flood 
but also through the blizzard of January 12, 1888, on which occasion he 
ventured out into the storm to feed his stock and then returned in 
safety to his home, although many perished in going a few yards from 
their doors. He came too late to see the buffaloes but has seen wild 
deer running through the open. Grasshoppers were destructive for three 
or four years but did not in any one year take all of his crops, 
although one season they completely destroyed thirty acres of fine 
growing corn. Today Mr. Inch is one of Yankton county's substantial 
citizens. He has attained the age of seventy nine years and is a well 
preserved man, retaining his faculties in a marked degree.