Wallis Rowan, also known as Wallace Rowan, was born in Kentucky in 1800 of Scotch Irish descent and worked as a lead miner, trader, innkeeper, land speculator, farmer, and mill owner. In 1818 he married Elizabeth “Betsy” Metcalf in Illinois. By 1828 he was in Blue Mounds working at Ebenezer Brigham’s lead mine and store, and he later traded with Indians on the north side of Lake Mendota, at Winnequah Point on Lake Monona, at Cross Plains, and at this site. In 1833 he built a cabin here consisting of two log buildings with an open space of about ten feet between them under the same roof, near the intersection of the newly surveyed Military Road and the Indian trail running from Four Lakes (Madison) to the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers (Portage). The Rowan family used the cabin as a home, trading post, and inn for travelers until moving to Baraboo in Sauk County in 1840. Rowan’s property became part of the town of Pauquette, platted in 1837 by Rowan, A.S. Hooe, and James D. Doty and named for Pierre Pauquette, a friend of Doty, a trusted trader, and interpreter for the Ho-Chunk at the portage, though the plat was never developed. In 1850 Samuel Thomas owned Rowan’s trading cabin and it was being used as a post office with John Thomas as postmaster. In 1851 Samuel B. Pinney platted the village of Poynette on much of the same land, and although the cabin disappeared long ago, Rowan Creek still flows a few hundred yards to the north.