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Exeter traces its origin to 1870, when Dr. Horace Greeley Smith filed a homestead claim on the site in anticipation of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad's westward expansion; the railroad reached the area the following year, and the town was formally incorporated in 1879. Its name is said to come from a local settler family who had emigrated from Exeter, New Hampshire, a name that also happened to fit the railroad's practice of naming its stations in alphabetical order heading west. Exeter is the birthplace of journalist Jeff Zeleny, a longtime senior political correspondent for CNN and ABC News who grew up on the family farm there, and of Donald Trauger, a nuclear scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project and later became a director at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The village is home to Gilbert's Park, which includes an aquatic center built in 2009, along with the Edgar Recreation Center and three churches.
With a 2020 population of 516, Exeter remains one of the larger villages in Fillmore County, supported by recreational amenities like its aquatic center that are relatively substantial for a town its size. Its connection to nationally recognized figures in journalism and nuclear science gives it a notable legacy beyond its agricultural roots.