Richard Pinch (bef. 1815 - 1890)

Born before 29 Dec 1815 in St. Stephen in Brannel, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom

Ancestors

Husband of Mary Ann (Farrier) Pinch — married 29 Dec 1842 in Woolwich, Greenwich, Kent, England, United Kingdom

Husband of Mary (Hamilton) Pinch — married 10 Nov 1880 in Markham, York, Ontario, Canada

Descendants

Died 2 Sep 1890 after age 74 in Peel, Ontario, Canada

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Biography

Richard Pinch was born in Cornwall, England.

Birth
Rev. Richard Pinch was born in the Cornish village of St. Stephen in Brannel, on the edge of the "china clay" district, in 1815. He was baptized on December 29 of that year in the Parish Church.^[1]

The Smith
By 1841, his parents were still alive and living in St. Stephen in Brannel. Richard had taken up a trade, becoming a smith, and had relocated to London. In London, he was a lodger with the Kent family on Hamilton St. in the Borough of Lambeth.^[2] The Kent's were from his home town of St. Stephen's. One of his fellow lodgers (also from St, Stephen's) was Nicholas Dabb, the father of Raymond Dabb Yelland, the American painter.^[3]
His mother passed away late in 1841, and a little over a year later, after Christmas in 1842, Richard married Mary Farrier in the Parish Church in Woolwich, Greenwich, London.^[4] Mary's parents were Scottish, although Mary was born in London, England and presumably grew up there. Both Mary's father and Richard's father were shoemakers. I do not know if the families met through some sort of cobbler's guild or if this is just a coincidence.
In the late spring of 1844, their daughter Elizabeth was born in London. I have been unable to find a record of any other children and Elizabeth seems to have been an only child.
Some time after Elizabeth's birth, the family left London, moving to Valetta, Malta. Richard's father died in 1845, so perhaps it was after this date. It would appear that Richard, as a skilled tradesman, was employed by the Royal Navy Dockyards in Malta as what we would describe today as a "civilian contractor". He is listed in the 1852 electoral list as Richard Pink living at 6 Stada San Giorgio, Vittoriosa.^[5]
Richard was a Methodist and it was apparently a difficult time for his faith in Malta. The Methodists had arrived there a generation before, but found stiff resistance from the Roman Catholic establishment. "It became increasingly obvious that there was no progress being made amongst the Maltese. The Methodists were making headway in other parts of the world and it was felt that a Minister could be better employed in another country. So it came as no surprise when on 12th July 1843, a General Committee of the Missionary Society passed a resolution that the Minister should be withdrawn from Malta. (The preacher) John Jenkins preached his last sermon in the Valletta chapel on 12th February 1844 then left with his family for England, and the Mission was closed down."^[6]
So the small Methodist community had to conduct their own services with lay preachers for the next eight years. As time went by, small groups came in contact with each other. Malta Family History reports that "A man working in the Dockyard attempted to band the fragmented groups in Cottonera together by renting a house in Vittoriosa."^[6] Richard Pinch's grandson, Rev. Richard Pinch Bowles, would later write: "I have what I trust, will be a treasured heirloom to my grandchildren, a silver goblet given to Richard Pinch by members of his Methodist Class at Valetta and testifying to his "Christian Piety". The date is 1853."^[7] One has to wonder if the silver cup was at least partly given in thanks for the effort Richard had put into acquiring a place for them to worship in.

The Preacher
Clearly he must also have been moonlighting from his day job, acting as a lay preacher for the Methodist community, because not long after receiving the gift from his classmates, he and his family would leave Malta and immigrate to Canada, where he was accepted as a preacher by the Methodist Conference, being assigned to the Berlin circuit in 1854.^[8] After a year in Berlin (later to be renamed as Kitchener, Ont.) he was assigned to St. Mary's in Perth County, following which he took two years off due to ill health. When he returned to the ministry it was in Mono, where he remained for three years from 1858 to 1860. It was while living here that his young daughter met her future husband, George Bowles. They would get married in 1861,^[9] shortly after her father had been moved again, this time to Stouffville.^[10]
After a brief stint in Nissouri in 1863, he was superannuated back to Mono. Richard and his wife would spend the greater part of the next four years in Mono, near by their daughter and her young family. But their travels were not done.

The Pioneer
They would spend 1866 back in St. Mary's. It was likely there that the bold Iowa experiment was planned. Most of Iowa had been settled before the US Civil War but it wasn't until after the war that the far northwest of the state was opened to pioneers, spurred on by the Ilinois Central Railroad which began extending it's track into Iowa in 1867.
In 1868, Richard Pinch and his wife, already in their fifties, set out from Canada with the twenty-seven year old William Jackson, his wife, the former Mary Moore, and their three year old daughter. Their destination was the plains of Iowa. Mary Moore Jackson would give birth to another child in Michigan while en route to Iowa. The Jackson's were both born in South Perth - he in Downie Township, she in Blanshard Township - which was in the rural hinterland of Pinch's St. Mary's posting. One of the lists of Richard's postings^[11] actually has him listed in Blanshard Township, not St. Mary's in 1855.
The two couples settled on adjacent farms in Coon Township, Buena Vista County, which was the area just being opened up by pioneers in the far northwest corner of the state. A year after their arrival, the Jackson's would celebrate the arrival of twins, who would be baptized by the Rev. Pinch.^[12] In the 1870 census, the Pinch farm is valued at $1000, about average for the area. The Jackson farm is small, valued at $400.^[13]
Pioneer life was difficult to say the least. Mary Jackson's memorial reports that "she was a resident of this country two years before there was not a building erected at Storm Lake or Newell. The country was a pathless and uncultivated waste when in the fall of the year the cabin and stock of the few scattered settlers were exposed to the relentless prairie fire, the most dreaded of all the foes of the early settler."^[14] This was followed in the 1870's by a plague of grasshoppers.
The Jackson's would dig in their heels and stay. But whether it was the prairie fires, the grasshoppers or just the rigors of pioneer life on their middle aged bodies, the Pinch's gave up on Iowa and returned to Ontario in 1872.

Final Years
Richard was appointed to the Monckton circuit by the Methodist conference in 1873. In 1874 he was attached to the London conference where he likely was used as a replacement preacher when someone was ill or unable to perform their duties. In 1878, he transferred to the Toronto conference. The move may have been made to bring Richard and his wife (who may have been in poor health by this time) closer to their daughter and her growing family.
The following year, on September 9, 1879, his wife of nearly 37 years passed away. Fourteen months later, Richard remarried. His new bride was a widow, Mary Lee nee Hamilton.^[15] After their wedding, they settled in Chinguacousy Township, not far from Richard's daughter, Elizabeth.^[16]
Richard died on September 2, 1890 in Peel County, Ontario.^[17] His second wife, nearly twenty years younger than him, would outlive him by a quarter of a century. Richard is buried in Sandhill with his first wife, Mary Ann.^[18]

Sources

1. ↑ "England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NTFS-626 : accessed 25 December 2015), Richard Pinch, 29 Dec 1815; citing St. Stephens-in-Brannel, Cornwall, England, reference 25; FHL microfilm 1,596,228.
2. ↑ 1841 England Census, Lambeth, Surrey, London, England.
3. ↑ Liz Williams, Yelland Family Genealogist, St. Austell, Cornwall, England.
4. ↑ Marriages Solemnized in the Parish Church, Parish of Woolwich, County of Kent, 1842, page 37.
5. ↑ Malta Family History - British Residents 1800-1900
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1} Malta Family History - Churches used by British Residents and Servicemen
7. ↑ The Tipperary Bowles, by Richard Pinch Bowles.
8. ↑ All Methodist conference postings taken from the Cyclopedia of Methodism in Canada by George Henry Cornish, pg. 126.
9. ↑ Ontario, Canada, Marriages 1801-1928, Series: MS248_13; Reel: 13, Peel, 1861.
10. ↑ Wesleyan Methodist Baptisms Stouffville - 1861.
11. ↑ Canadian Methodist Ministers 1800-1925
12. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #104934338.
13. ↑ 1870 US Federal Census, Iowa, Buena Vista, Coon, Pg. 7 of 20.
14. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #104934019.
15. ↑ Ontario, Canada, Marriages 1801-1928, Peel 1880, pg. 64 of 483.
16. ↑ 1881 Census of Canada, Ontario, Peel, Chinguacousy, pg. 51 of 114.
17. ↑ Ontario, Canada, Deaths 1869-1938, Peel 1890, Pg. 14 of 43.
18. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #166318710.

See also:

• George Bowles Family Tree, by Tom Laporte.
• Photo of Parish Church - John Evans
• Minutes of the fifty-first annual conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada, June, 1874
• Wesleyan Methodist Baptismal Register Mono - 1858.
• Wesleyan Methodist Baptismal Register Adjala - 1858.
• Jackson/Moore Wedding at: Ontario, Canada, Marriages 1801-1928, Archives of Ontario; Series: MS248_18; Reel: 18.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Dave Rutherford for starting this profile. Click the Changes tab for the details of contributions by Dave and others. Pinch-118 was created by Tom McCartney through the import of Mccartney_2015-06-20.ged on Jun 20, 2015.