Joseph Hutchins (also Hutchings) (1776-1857) and his wife Elizabeth moved to the Steuben area around 1805 from Kittery, Maine. Hutchins purchased a piece of property from Ebenezer Downs near or in the area where the house at 138 Village Road now stands. (March 9, 1808, 5:146)

Joseph and his brother Obediah purchased several properties in Steuben, with Obediah buying the original 100-acre lot #6 from Samuel Kingsley (5:146) and Joseph buying land in the Dyer Bay area, among others. Joseph overextended himself financially, which led to a judgment against him (19:251) from his financier, Ichabod Macomber of Boston, on October 21, 1828, in the amount of $1,886.44. Hutchins was given 60 days to pay with the threat of jail.

To pay off the debt, Hutchins ceded some of his property to Macomber to cover his debts. From that land, Macomber sold a 12-acre plot to Lemuel B. Sawyer for $1,110, including land “beginning at a spring near the head of the tide, a little to the south of the house where Joseph Hutchins lately lived, thence running up the Tunk River…to land owned by Robert Shaw, thence westerly by Shaw’s land to the county road…then southerly along the road to the town landing, containing 12 acres; with the sawmill and buildings thereon, it being the same land and property formerly owned and occupied by Joseph Hutchings.” (May 13, 1829, 21:123). Hutchins sold off additional property to Lemuel, including a 55-acre parcel bounded by “Captain William Jones land and the Dunbar Road” (this would put it in the approximate location of where Lemuel built his house at 193 Village Road) (July 2, 1835, 29:299).

Lemuel Baker Sawyer (1802-1890, son of early Steuben settler Joseph Sawyer) was a house carpenter and savvy real estate investor. He built his home on at 193 Village Road. Lemuel married Sophronia Handy (1808-1868), daughter of Ebenezer and Hannah (Plummer) Handy, in Steuben in 1828. The couple had one daughter, Elmira, born in 1835. After Sophronia passed in 1868, he remarried Sarah Brown, a much younger woman, and had three more children (Myra, Lemuel Jr., and Charles).

During the 1840s, Samuel Dutton (1789-1874) of Ellsworth started purchasing land as well as mill and flowage privileges to expand his sawmill operations in Steuben from Ebenezer Handy (July 28, 1848, 64:555), Benjamin Godfrey (on the other side of Tunk River, April 19, 1848, 65:556), and from Lemuel B. Sawyer (per a lease dated June 14, 1848, 64:255). Samuel’s sons Edward (1821-1878), William R.H. (1825-1893), and Frances (1816-1878) came to the Steuben area in the late 1840s to support their father’s new mill venture. As of 1850, Edward and William Dutton were boarding with Leonard Haskell and his family in the village (see 3 Rogers Point Road).

Lemuel sold an additional piece of property near Henry Steven’s lot (see 108 Village Road) to Frances, William, and Edward on March 16, 1854 (82:238; I believe this was the site of Frances Dutton’s store) and another 1.5 acres on January 18, 1854 (79:514-5) in a deed that references Samuel Dutton’s sawmill. A quitclaim deed from William and Edward to Frances references a house at the 138 Village Road location (June 24, 1858, 90:392) and refers to deed 79:514. Again, the ownership lineage gets a little murky, but it looks like Frances either gave or sold the house to Edward when he married Eliza (Lizzie) Nash in 1859.

Edward’s name is listed on the 1861 survey map, and his wife, Mrs. E. Dutton, on the 1881 survey map after he died in 1878. They had four children.

(Note: Edward’s brother William R.H. Dutton married into the Shaw family ((see 102 Village Road) and built the house at 97 Village Road around 1885.)

The property passed to their son Walter Edwin Dutton (1861-1937). W.E. worked as a laborer and farmer, and as of the 1920 census, his occupation was listed as a poultry farmer. He never married.

The property went into foreclosure in the 1950s due to unpaid taxes.

Image source: Realtor.com