It was a plain, small, rectangular wood cabin, only 18 feet long and 12 feet wide, that could sleep five people, comfortably or uncomfortably. Plain wood siding, no windows, and one door plus a little side woodshed off one side at the end to store dried wood for the fireplace. The Trout Hollow Cabin was built in 1855 by William Trout, a year before William and his brother Peter built the sawmill on a little knoll in a hollow of the river valley at the base of a steep escarpment along the west side of the Bighead River close to its mouth flowing into Georgian Bay at Meaford, Ont.
It served as the living quarters for the Trout brothers as they built a sawmill to use the river power of the strong flow to turn a water wheel to power the saw. The sawmill, built in 1856, was used to harvest the many tall trees growing on the west escarpment and around the mill. The mill was also turned into a rake and broom manufacturing factory by the Trout brothers and their partner Charles Jay.
The cabin and mill would not have been famous since the mill burnt to the ground from a spark from the cabin’s fireplace on Feb. 21, 1866, and all the stock, tools, and records were lost. Why was this plain, little, basic cabin among thousands built in Ontario at that time so famous since it lasted only 10 years? It became famous in the autumn of 1864 when John Muir decided to join his brother Peter in working at the sawmill with their friends, the Trouts.
John Muir lived in the cabin from the late summ.