Eliza Peet arrived in Huron in July of 1882. At that time it was a small town with several stores, a blacksmith shop, the Dakota House Hotel and a few other scattered buildings.
Ms. Peet wrote about her early days in the Huron-Virgil area at the request of a school teacher in Virgil. A copy of her story is being shared by the Dakotaland Museum.
Ms. Peet's father, George Hebron, a brother, William, and her husband, Silas Peet, had arrived in Huron in April. They had entered land, quarters all joining each other, and been back to Iowa for household goods, machinery and livestock.
She was met by her brother-in-law, W. B. Ingersell. He came to Huron with his wife, Minerva Peet in 1880. Walter was the first lawyer in Huron.
The next morning they started out for the homestead located 14 miles southwest of Huron. According to Ms. Peet, there were no roads then - just trails that had been marked by piles of rocks on hills and along the way to guide in the right direction.
She didn't see a tree anywhere, just waves of grass and pond holes full of water.
Buffalo bones were seen every few miles. "Later on men gathered them up in wagons and sold them in Huron to be shipped away," she writes. "Many horns and skulls were kept by the settlers and today are treasured souvenirs."
She writes they passed many shanties and sod houses. "I remember at one of these I noticed a washing hanging on the line," she writes. "My husband told me it was always hanging there. The man who lived there liked to spend his time in Huron and had the wash out to make believe he lived there all the time before proving up on his claim."
Ms. Peet writes that her husband had staked his homestead on the east bank of Cain Creek. "As we topped the last hill, I saw my future residence," she writes. "It was a story-and-a-half house, 24 x 18 feet. It had no floor, windows or doors at the time, but had been shingled to keep our goods and provisions from the rain."
Her father was standing by the house when they arrived. "His first words, almost, were that he was glad I had got there; he was surely tired of batching, and they badly needed a cook," she wrote.
She recalls that the mosquitoes were plentiful "and could they bite." "By evening I knew all about them," she writes. "It seemed I could hear their droning song coming from all directions. Their fame had traveled to Iowa and I had fortunately fortified myself with bolts of muslin and mosquito netting. You can be assured I wasted no time digging it out of boxes and getting it up on doors and windows."
"The next day was Sunday and we planned to take our ponies and ride over the adjacent country," she writes. "Cain Creek was full of water. The grass was as high as my shoulders in the low lands. There was a vast expanse of emerald green as far as the eye could see."
A dark spot on the creek where smoke was curling up from a chimney pointed them to a sod house occupied by John and Ada Warner. "She was my only woman neighbor that summer and I think she was one of the best," she writes. "When sickness, trouble or death visited the community, she was always to be found there with a helping hand."
She writes that each homestead was required to brake five acres of land and plant the first year. "We planted our flax," she writes. "Nearly all the other settlers did the same."
The first visitors were Worthington Ross and Hoskins. Other men who took claims around the neighborhood that first summer and remained during the winter were Gideon Yales, Falkner, Jake Davis and Jenkins. Others came and built their shanties, broke five acres, and took their leave for six months so they didn't have to stay over the winter.
*permission granted to Karen Hammer to republish, 2007.
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