Thomas Young McCourt

Thomas left Wisconsin to homestead and to prospect in Montana. He and his brother, John, raised horses. About 1895, Tom took a carload of horses to Crowley, LA to sell to the rice farmers and he met Kitty. He remained in Louisiana. He volunteered for the Civil War, but it ended about 6 weeks after.

HIs parents migrated from Ireland to Canada to New York to Wisconsin. He became a rice farmer in Texas and Louisiana. He died when his daughter, Edith, was 13 years old and helped her mother raise the family after she finished high school. She never married.

Kitty Neal was related to Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy.

In a letter of 31 Oct 1987, Mrs. Alton R McCourt of Jennings, LA wrote: Thomas MCCourt farmed the land on which Rice university now stands in Houston, TX. He lost his shirt there and began over again in Jennings, LA. His daughter, Edith, said that Thomas died at "Andrus Cove" where they lived and farmed rice. The poeple who now own the land have oil wells.