For many years, Elnathan Sawtelle was a successful farmer.  His father, who had the same name, was also a prominent Union township farmer.  The elder Sawtelles were natives of Massachusetts.  They were participants in the western movement of New England people seeking new opportunities in farming in the 1800s.  First they moved to Vermont in 1837 and lived there for eighteen years before coming to Wisconsin in 1855.  Of the elder Sawtelle’s eight children, only four survived, three daughters, and Elnathan, Jr.

Elnathan, Jr. was born in Ludlow, Vermont in 1822 and came to Wisconsin with his parents.  Seven years later, he married Lucy Biglow.  The younger Sawtelles moved to Evansville in 1865 and built a house at 416 East Main Street.

In late December 1882, the Evansville Review announced that Mr. Sawtelle had purchased the “Lee place” just west of the Baptist church and was intending to move the small house on the property to a lot on Liberty Street.  However the moving of the old house and the building of a new one was delayed until 1884.

The Sawtelle’s spent the winters in Florida and returned to Evansville in the Spring.  Lucy Sawtelle was in failing health and Elnathan decided to build a new house on Church Street that would be comfortable and convenient for his wife.

Elnathan found a house plan that he liked and adapted it to make life easier for Lucy.  William Libby, one of Evansville's favorite builders, was hired to construct the house.

Before the house building could begin, the small house was moved to the lot on Liberty Street.  The smaller house was remodeled and enlarged into two apartments.

In April 1884, the site preparations were completed on Church Street and the basement for the new house was dug.   Sawtelle's house on East Main had sold before the construction of the new one was completed and for a short time, a tent, referred to as "a Dakota mansion", became home for Elnathan and Lucy.

Throughout the summer, Libby worked on and supervised the building of the Sawtelle's new house.  In May, the roof of the new house had been completed and it was being painted.  However, it was not until October that the interior was near completion and the painters were putting the finishing touches on the new residence.  The exterior paint was described as a "leather color with appropriate trim".

A newspaper article in the October 24, 1884 Evansville Review described the interior of the house.  The wood trim was native pine without paint or stain.  The floors were mainly oak.  The house was heated with a hot air furnace located in the cellar.

There was a kitchen and root cellar in the basement.  Living rooms, bedrooms, and servants rooms were all on the first and second floor.  A stairway led up through the attic to the roof.  From the large balcony on the roof, most of the village of Evansville could be seen.

The doors were fitted with trigger latches, similar to those found in Dr. John and Emma Evans' house built that same year at 104 West Main Street.  A cistern in the attic collected rainwater and piped it into the kitchen.

William Libby reported to the Review that the house cost $3,300 to build.  The local newspaper, the Enterprise, described the house was "one of the best and handsomest residences this place affords."

Nine years after building the house, Elnathan Sawtelle died.  Lucy became the sole owner of the house and the other properties he owned.  They had no children

After she became a widow, Lucy Sawtelle took in boarders.  She was also an active volunteer in the Baptist Church next door to her house.

On August 20, 1910 she died.  She was 80 years old.  Since there were no children, Lucy’s brother, Lucius Biglow, received title to the house.  He settled the estate by selling the property at 113 West Church to Dr. Fred Colony and his wife, Edith, in March 1911. Very shortly after, the Colony's and their two children, Martin V. and Alice, moved into the house.

Fred Colony, a native of Janesville, was born in 1865.  He came to Evansville as a young man.  He worked in a local drug store, known as the Sonn's Drug Store in the late 1880s.  Unsure of his life's vocation, Fred taught school at Attica in 1889.  Then he decided to attend Rush Medical College in Chicago.

This was the college chosen most often by young men from Evansville who wanted to become physicians and surgeons.  To pay his expenses, during the second year of school, Fred, worked for a Chicago physician and responded when the doctor received calls in the night.

After attending Rush Medical College for two years, Fred Colony received his diploma and became a full-fledged physician in March 1891.   He returned to Evansville to establish his practice in an office above Dr. Evans' Drug Store, at the southeast corner of Main and Madison Streets.

Seven years later, Edith Pratt and Fred Colony were married on July 7, 1898 at the home of her mother.  The wedding was a quiet affair, because Edith's father had recently died.

Edith had lived in Evansville most of her life.  She was an early member of the Woman's Literary Club.  After their marriage, the Colony's lived in several houses and her mother sometimes lived with the young couple.

Colony was fond of fast horses and shortly after he set up his practice he began to invest in good driving horses.  When automobiles became available, the doctor was one of the first to buy one.  He purchased a new Rambler in 1907 and when the weather and roads permitted, he used the car to make his rounds.

According to an ad by local Rambler agent, Clarence Baker, a Model 21 Rambler was selling for $1,350 in 1907.  Colony purchased a Cadillac two years later.  He frequently invited friends and family for Sunday afternoon rides.  In the early days of automobiles, it was a one-hour drive to Janesville.

An Evansville promotional brochure published in 1910 praises Dr. Colony:  "He has always been foremost in adopting the latest and best developments of science or convenience and when the introduction of the automobile gave a new spur to the practice of medicine as a first aid to the injured, he was one of the first to invest."

Both Fred and Edith Colony were active members in Evansville’s civic and social organizations.  Fred became a first ward alderman for the City of Evansville in 1910.  He promoted the restoration of the dam at the park in Lake Leota as well as a landscaping plan for lagoons and an amphitheater.  However, voters turned down the proposal.

Edith Colony was born in Sun Prairie, and her father, who operated a grocery, moved to Evansville.  Except for a short period of time that her family lived in California and Janesville, she spent her entire life in Evansville.  She was very active in the Mothers' and Others' Club, an early form of a parent-teacher support group for the public schools.

In 1916, Edith Colony died unexpectedly, leaving Fred a widower, with the two children to raise.  Their son, Martin, was sixteen years old and their daughter, Alice, eleven.  Her obituary praised Edith for her beautiful home life and her "kind and loving ministrations, flowers and succor for the sick and needy."  The funeral was held at the home on Church Street.

Dr. Colony and the children continued to live in the house at 113 West Church for three more years.  In 1919, the house was sold to John Eugene Montgomery (usually called Eugene) and his wife, Kate.

Prior to moving to Evansville, Eugene and Kate Montgomery lived on the Montgomery family farm on Jug Prairie, west of Evansville.  Eugene took over the operation of the farm from his father John Jackson Montgomery.  The elder Montgomery retired to Evansville and purchased a home at 42 Montgomery Court.

For a brief period of time in his youth, Eugene worked for Frank Crow in the Crow Drug Store in Evansville, but his true vocation was farming.  In November 1896, he married Kate Adell Starkweather and they had three children, Alvin, Caryl, and Lyle.

The house for a short time was home to three generations and was the site of many family gatherings.  Kate's 88-year-old mother, Sarah Ryan Starkweather, came to live in the house with them.  The Starkweathers had farmed near Cooksville until 1900 when they moved to Evansville for two years so that a foster daughter, Mabel Ames, could attend the Evansville High School.  Mabel later wrote a book of poetry, "Rosemary and Rue" published in 1932 by the Antes Press in Evansville.

The Starkweathers moved to a farm near Brooklyn in 1902.  Her husband, Harvey, died in 1910 and she lived on the Brooklyn farm until the Montgomery family moved into the house on Church Street.  Sarah died at her daughter's home in January 1921.
 
When the Montgomery's came to Evansville, their son, Alvin, was already a student at the University of Wisconsin.  He received his degree in Chemical Engineering in 1921.  For many years he worked in the Chicago office of the J. O. Ross Engineering Company.  After retiring in 1953, he moved to California.

Alvin provided much of the biographical information about the Montgomerys, as he spent more than sixty years researching the family history, tracing it back to early Colonial times.

Alvin spent vacations and holidays at his parents’ home on Church Street and in later years, he recalled that he had been fascinated with items stored in the attic.  One of the interesting boxes left by a previous owner contained glass negatives of pictures taken in Evansville.

Caryl Kathryn Montgomery, Kate and Eugene's only daughter, was married in her parents'home on West Church Street on August 16, 1924.  The bride wore a gown of pearl crepe de chine and carried a bouquet of roses.  Garden flowers were used in the bouquet of her maid of honor.  The groom, Len Gay, was from Madison and after the ceremony the young couple went to live in that city.

The Montgomery's youngest son, Lyell Starkweather Montgomery, was 16 years old when they moved into the house on Church Street.  In 1929, he became a sales manager for the Wisconsin Air College, located between Janesville and Beloit at the air port there.  The school trained pilots had four training planes, two open and two closed.  Lyell later became Manager and President of the Gale Packing Co. in Galesville, Wisconsin.

In 1938, Eugene Montgomery celebrated his 80th birthday in the home on West Church Street.  Two years later, the Eugene and Kate sold their home and most of their furniture.

Eugene went to live in the Wisconsin Masonic Home at Dousman, Wisconsin until his death in 1951. However, Kate refused to leave her friends in Evansville and remained in the house until she could no longer live alone.  Kate’s final years were spent in the Attic Angel Nursing Home in Madison and she died there at the age of 97, in 1962.

When the Montgomerys sold the house at 113 West Church Street to Laverna Gillies Houghton in October 1940, Laverna and her aging father, James Gillies, moved into the house.  Laverna was born in 1877 in Union Township and her family had moved to Janesville so that she could attend the high school there.  She graduated from the University of Wisconsin.

James became a widower in 1897. After his daughter finished high school, James had moved to Evansville and established a real estate business with Marshall Fisher.

Laverna was a well-educated, adventurous and curious woman.  In 1904, Laverna, Daisy Spencer, and Gertrude Eager sailed to Europe on the Princess Louise, a German-Lloyd steamer.  The girls spent four months taking the Grand Tour of Europe, visiting many historical points on the British Isles and Continental Europe.  They left New York harbor on April 23, 1904 and returned September 5.

The three women were asked to give talks about their tour and eventually formed a traveling club.  By 1906 the club was named The Tourist Club and still exists today.

In 1913, Laverna became the bride of Fred Prescott Haughton and they made their home in Duluth.  He died in 1933.

Laverna returned to Evansville in 1940 to care for her 90-year-old father, James Gillies.  Her home on Church Street became a hub of activity during World War II.  She organized a sewing club to make clothing for people in war-torn England.  About forty women gathered in her home to help sew items to be sent abroad.

James Gillies died at home in December 1945.  As the only child, Laverna, was left to dispose of the real estate holdings of her father.

Laverna made changes to the house by removing a wall on the first floor.  This created a long living room on the east side of the house, where originally there had been two rooms.  She remained in the house at 113 West Church until 1953 when she sold it to Don and Aneta Capron.

The Caprons modernized the kitchen and enclosed the back porch.  The large glassed-in porch gave a lovely view of the large lawn in the back of the house.  They also purchased part of the Gray-Waddell property to the west, to enlarge their side yard.

A garage was added close to the house, and a large barn near the back alley was maintained.  It serves as a reminder of the days when horses and later Dr. Colony's automobiles were housed there.

Don Capron operated a small business, Capron's L.P. Gas Service in Evansville and Orfordville until his death in 1968.  Both Aneta and Ira Donald Capron were natives of Beloit and were married there in 1934.  They had lived in Madison, before moving to Evansville with their daughters, Margaret and Sally.

Aneta became a member of the Tourist Club that organized after the European Grand tour of Laverna Gillies and her friends.  The Caprons were also active members of the Congregational Church and Aneta was one of the Evansville community members responsible for the organization of the local nursing home.  She served on the Board of Directors of The Evansville Manor from the time it opened in the early 1970s until her death in 1989.

Today the house at 113 West Church is the home of Margaret and Gordon Brigham.  Margaret is the daughter of Aneta and Don Capron and she and Gordon have operated the hardware store in Evansville since 1970, first as the Coast to Coast Store located at 13 West Main Street and later on East Main Street, as the Ace Hardware Store.

The Brighams have added a deck to the south side of the glassed-in porch built by Margaret's parents.  They have painted the house to highlight the decorative detail of the trim.  The house is today, as the Enterprise described it in 1884, "one of the best and handsomest residences this place affords."