Elizabeth Case, born to a father (John Case) relatively recently immigrated to the new world from Kent in England, and a mother (Sarah Spencer) who was already American-born, lived a frontier life if ever there was one. Her maternal grandfather had been William Spencer, the eldest of four Spencer brothers that emigrated to New England during the 1630s (William, Thomas, Michael and Gerard), and his name is engraved on the Founder’s Memorial in Hartford, CT, and her father’s name is closely connected with the settlement of Massacoe and the founding of Simsbury, CT.
Elizabeth was baptized in Maspeth Kill (i.e., Maspeth Creek) on Long Island (later called
Newtown, now part of the City of Brooklyn, NY) on 26 November 1656, but the family did not live there at the time. We know that they stayed there because John sent a letter to “my honored father William Edwards” at Hartford from there. They lived, instead, much closer to Hartford, in the settlement of Massacoe which had 13 permanent residents in 1669. People appeared to be hesitant to move settle there. Her father John Case was appointed to the position of constable of the ‘plantation’, this being the first recorded civil office held by residents of the area. John Case also appears to have been instrumental in the process of turning the settlement into a town of Connecticut, which happened on 12 May 1670, when the plantation was ordered to be called “Simmsbury“. The boundaries at that time were Farmington on the south and Windsor on the east, with the extent of Simsbury running 10 miles north of Farmington and 10 miles west of Windsor. Elizabeth seems to have spent most of her life in that area. One can surely say the family were American pioneers.
Elizabeth first married Joseph Lewis on April 30, 1674 when she was only 17. The two had three children together. Then, in or before 1685 when she was around 28, she married John Tuller, our 9th (and 10th) great-grandfather, by whom she had five children. She was John Tuller’s first wife, and a year after Elizabeth’s death, he married again. Our line continues through Elizabeth and John’s youngest daughter Mehitable, who married into the Chidester/ Chichester family that eventually joined the Snyder line.
Elizabeth died on 9 October 1718, in Simsbury, Connecticut, at the age of 61. She was laid to rest there in Simsbury Cemetery.
Rest in Peace, Grandma Tuller. You were among the first to settle a place that is still one of the prettiest places in the country, it seems: 9th best town to live in 2015 in the United States according to Time magazine!
Denney Home Place 
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