a beautiful district, the best he had seen in all their journeys. To this Mrs. Wood replied "Then take me to Plum Creek." They would arrive to the area on 28 August 1880. While setting up a homestead there they encountered a man, Squire Sowden from Millbrook, Ontario. Sowden was shocked to find a woman and children in what was then the middle of nowhere. The Woods would build a shanty on the shores of Plum Creek that would serve as a landing place for many new settlers to the area. Mrs. Wood later recounted a time when as many as 21 people were sleeping in their 12x16 foot sod shanty. Captain Wood lived until 1903 while Mrs. Wood died in 1928. The first large settlement was led by Squire Sowden. In 1880 he was appointed head of a Colonization Syndicate in Millbrook by a group of businessmen looking to settle the area. He explored the area of Plum Creek at Souris, adventuring as far west as today's Gainsborough, Saskatchewan. This is the time when Squire met the Woods, while exploring the area in early fall 1880. The sites were good and he selected several surveyed townships for their future settlement. Sowden and the businessmen sent a proposal to Ottawa which was accepted and the venture was begun. Sowden and the men arranged for land to be purchased at $3.00 an acre and each settler paid $25.00 for a receipt which was to be presented at the Land Office at the mouth of the Souris when they completed their registration. The settlers travelled from Ontario to Detroit by train, then travelling from there to Chicago, next to St. Paul, Minnesota, before eventually reaching Saint Boniface, Manitoba. Here they would travel the rough roads west by cart and storing their heavier goods until they could be shipped to the mouth of the Souris when navigable. When the settlers reached the land at last, they saw the land was good and set to work establishing their homesteads. The first building in the town was erected in 1881. The next few years saw the townsite continue to grow as more and more settlers reached the area. Many of the settlers returned home the first winter in 1881 to Ontario, but the following year they returned with more goods, and many more settlers followed them. The town grew at an exceptional rate in 1882.