Samuel Huckins

HUCKINS, SAMUEL, was born in Canada, of Vermont parentage, on the 12th day of March, 1832. He was reared on a farm and educated in the common schools. In 1847 he came to the United States and located in Illinois where he married in 1853, and resided for several years, and then removed to Howard county, Iowa. In 1864 he enlisted in Company G, 16th Iowa Infantry, and served during the remainder of the civil war, being mustered out July 19, 1865. He was in the battle at Nashville, Tennessee, and other less important engagements, and as the regiment did a great amount of marching he had the opportunity of seeing a good deal of the South without being to any expense for transportation. The latter part of August, 1869, he left Iowa for Dakota, and on the first day of September of that year he arrived in Sioux Falls. There were but two families in Sioux Falls at that time and they were occupying the barracks, which had been abandoned by the soldiers a few months previous. D. B. Reynolds and family, and some single men arrived at Sioux Falls the same day. Mr. Huckins says that at that time they had to pay $1.25 to $1.50 for a pound of tea, 25 to 28 cents for bacon and 13 to 17 cents for sugar at the Falls. In the spring of 1870 Mr. Huckins took up a homestead in sections 1 and 2 in Sioux Falls, and commenced farming, raising grain and stock, in which he continued until 1876, when becoming discouraged, owing to the multitude of grasshoppers that visited this section of the country and the limited range he had for his stock, he went to Hartford and pre-empted a quarter of section 11, where at that time there was a great amount of hay and a wide range for stock, and continued farming at this place until in 1889, when, owing to poor health, he sold his farm, and at this writing resides on a small farm about three miles north of the village of Hartford. When the township of Hartford was organized he was elected chairman of the town board of supervisors, to which position he was re-elected during the three years succeeding, and again in 1891, having served on the board nine years in all. Mr. Huckins is not only a pioneer citizen of this county, but is one of its most reliable citizens, and is universally respected by all who know him.

SOURCE: Dana Reed Bailey, History of Minnehaha County, South Dakota, p. 858-9