Congress Hall
A short distance east of the village of Delton, on the south side of the highway leading to the Wisconsin river, is Congress Hall. Here a rivulet has cut a ravine, much of the work evidently having been done in times long past, when there was more water than at present flowing along the course. Early in the spring a creek finds its way through the narrow gorge, but in late summer, after the May showers and June rains have passed, one may explore the elongated, eroded canyon without inconvenience from moisture. The Hall is wildly broken and much distorted in its windings. Often there are spacious openings as if for rooms, narrow passages leading into other chambers sufficiently ample for a congress to gather. These views are quite different from others in the region and will well repay a visit.
[CHAPTER VII]
Pewit's Nest Near Baraboo—Home of a Recluse—Skillet Falls—Graves of Napoleon Soldiers
But a trifle over three miles from Baraboo, in the early 40's, a queer enigmatical character secreted himself in the rocky recesses of Pewit's Nest. To this wildering abode he unexpectedly came, lived for a time, and mysteriously disappeared like a phantom or will-o'-the-wisp.
After rumbling over the bridge at the Island Woolen mill, climbing the curved incline, and passing over the viaduct above the railroad tracks, the course to Pewit's Nest follows the main highway which turns here to the right for a half a mile and another half mile to the left. Leaving the main road, No. 12, the course follows a mile to the right climbing the terminal moraine and crossing the outwash plain—and still another half mile to the left the journey brings the visitor to a little rural school-building by the roadside, the place to abandon the car. Here Skillet Creek has cut a wide-mouthed valley or pocket, Pewit's Nest being a quarter of a mile to the left of the main road.
Sward-sided cellar holes are all that remain of a few rude dwellings built about a primitive mill. At one time the jaws at the mouth of the Nest supported a great iron shaft, a cumbersome overshot waterwheel deliberately delivering the contents of the creek, by means of its buckets, into the pool below. In the process logs were converted into lumber, a painfully tedious operation.
A Queer Abode
Before building the mill, however, there dwelt in a recess of the solid sandstone, an ingenious and eccentric character whose presence and unusual behavior gave the name to the place. In his "Outline Sketches" W. H. Canfield, local historian, who located on Skillet Creek in 1842, says the abode of this individual was ten feet above a deep pool of water, dug out by the fail of the creek over the crest of the resisting formation. The approach to this nearly secreted habitation was either through a trap door in the roof, or a trap-door in the floor. If one entered through the roof it was by clambering down the rocky wall to the opening, and if through the floor it was by means of a floating bridge upon the pool, a ladder at its end leading to the trap-door in the floor. The little shop could not be seen from the mouth of the canyon, or from the top, or from any direction but one, hence by the early settlers was dubbed the "Pewee" or "Pewit's Nest."
Here the recluse repaired watches, clocks, guns, and occasionally farming utensils, even essaying to manufacture the latter in a rude way. Lathes he had for turning iron and wood, the power for propelling being provided from an old fashioned centrifugal water wheel, itself as much of a curiosity as its owner. A large coffee mill, likewise a grindstone, was arranged to operate by the water that was forever collecting in the upper valley and pouring through the shady dell. It is said that this hermit of the hill could tell a lively tale and dispelled the gloom of loneliness by playing upon a violin. At times, forsooth, he was persuaded to preach for the Mormon church, although his activities in this direction were never pronounced. Among his other accomplishments, he posed as a doctor and prescribed as remedies the herbs and shrubs growing in the valleys and on the hills about.