author
Stephen D. (Stephen Denison) Peet
1831–1914
A minister-turned-antiquarian, he wrote energetically about the ancient earthworks and Indigenous cultures of North America at a time when American archaeology was still taking shape. His books and journals reflect both wide curiosity and the 19th-century debates that surrounded early archaeology.
1 Audiobook
The Ashtabula Disaster
by Stephen D. (Stephen Denison) Peet
About the author
Born in Ohio in 1831, he grew up in a family deeply tied to religion and education. Archival and society records describe him as the son of Rev. Stephen Peet, a missionary leader connected with the founding of Beloit College, and note that Stephen D. Peet was part of Beloit's first graduating class.
Although he served as a clergyman, much of his lasting reputation comes from his work as a writer, editor, and organizer in American archaeology. He founded and edited The American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal and wrote extensively on mound builders, prehistoric North America, and related subjects, including the multi-volume Prehistoric America.
Peet died in 1914. Today he is remembered as one of the energetic popularizers of early American archaeology—an author whose work helped spread interest in the continent's ancient sites, even as some of his ideas belong clearly to an earlier era of scholarship.