GIDEON NELSON PEET:  (1776 - 1843)

Gideon was born July 31, 1776 in Trumbull, CT, to Gideon Peet (1742 - 1823) and Bethia 

(Betty) Burton (born in 1742) and was baptized on September 15, 1776.  He was married February 22, 1801 to Abigail Wildman, born July 20, 1783 in Danbury, CT. Gideon was an expert mechanic but followed farming as a life work.  Congress had aquired land in Cortland County, New York to compensate  Connecticut militia (and their heirs) for their participation in various campaigns in the American Revolution.  Gideon's father had acquired a tract of this land,  and in 1801, following his marriage to Abigail, Gideon and a couple of his brothers travelled to Solon, in Cortland Co, NY, where he would pursue that dream and set up a farm on his father's property.  With all their personal possessions packed on a horse they set off to the west, with the young bride riding while the groom walked beside her. They slept and cooked as they went. As they neared their destination, Gideon carefully blazed the trees to mark the way for others to find their ways through the woods, (or to find their way out if necessary).  When they arrived at Solon, Gideon began to cut the trees and build the log cabin which would be their new home.  At their new home they reared a family of eight sons and one daughter, all of whom would live to become heads of their own families. 

The home in Solon NY

In 1838 the Iowa Territory was formed.  Gideon, ever the pioneer, then moved to Iowa in 1840, with Abigail and six unmarried sons, and were followed later by his son, John. The family first traveled to the town that is now Chicago. From there they continued to travel west from Chicago on the "plank road" with their team of oxen. When they came to the Mississippi River, they crossed by flatboat to Dubuque, IA.  Gideon believed that Iowa offered better advantages and possibilities than the older settled east, and he had decided upon Jones County as a suitable place to locate. Accordingly, he went to the US Land Office in Dubuque and purchased 560 acres of land, in the Fairview Township of Jones County. He then travelled to his new home, by way of The Military Road.   They settled on their new land, and opened a farm there.

The frame house built by Gideon in the early 1840’s was destroyed 

by fire in the mid-1980s and replaced with a new home. 

Gideon lived to enjoy his new home for only a brief period. He died October 10, 1843, in Fairview, IA, and was buried October 18, 1843, at the Wilcox Cemetery in Fairview, IA.  

His sons assumed the management of the home farm for their widowed mother, and when she died on December 3, 1847, in Fairview, IA, she was buried alongside Gideon in the Wilcox Cemetery.