In his later teens, Muir’s family moved to Hickory Hill Farm near Portage where Muir continued making wooden mechanisms. But because his father was such a harsh disciplinarian, he ordered all of the family to go to bed after chores were completed at dusk. He also had little tolerance for his son’s inventions.

“His father didn’t care what time he got up,” said Matt Blessing, an archivist who has written about Muir. “So what does Muir do? He goes to bed at 8 p.m. and quickly discovers he can get by on four or five hours of sleep. He gets himself up at midnight and goes down into the cellar and (by candle light) begins making inventions he thinks his father will support because they’re going to improve the efficiency of the farm.”

One of his creations was a saw blade out of a women’s corset that he used in a table saw. A Scottish neighbor encouraged Muir to take his inventions to the 1860 Wisconsin State Fair, at that time held near Camp Randall in Madison. This is where Muir is first publicly noted in an article in the Wisconsin State Journal.

That same year, Muir enrolled at UW-Madison where he lived in North Hall and his room became a curiosity.