In the Spelman Genealogy (1910), Fannie Cooley Williams Barbour writes of Elizabeth Lucins Spelman Brown:

Mrs. Brown spent much of her girlhood in the “Old Spelman Red House,” and received the names of her two grandmothers, Hayes and Kent. Soon after her marriage, her husband purchased the old Joel Root homestead on the hill at East Granville, near the church. The house is built in the Colonial style, and the door and entrance is much admired. Mrs. Brown has lived in it for fifty years, and still continues to reside there. […] Mrs. Brown was a singer, taking part in the Granville Jubilee of 1845 and later in the Jubilee of 1895, having retained her vocal talent for the intervening years. She was prominent in the affairs of the schools of Granville, and did much to aid them. At the time of the Jubilee of 1895 a reunion of the Spelman family took place at her house, and a large gathering of descendants was present, coming from all parts of the United States.

The house, on Main Road in Granville Center, was built around 1816 by Joel Root, who married Sarah Ensign in 1803 and then, after her death, married her sister Clarissa Ensign in 1811. According to James Pierce Root in Root Genealogical Records (1870):

He commenced business in early life, and was a successful merchant for more than forty years in his native town, where, by honesty, integrity, and faithful application to business, he accumulated a property large for those days and the place in which he lived. He was postmaster for a series of years, and during his whole life had the confidence and respect of his fellow townsmen, being frequently honored with the highest offices within their gift. Mrs. C. Root has resided in Springfield, Mass., for the past few years, and though nearly eighty, has never used spectacles, and reads with ease the finest print.

At an 1850 double-wedding in Springfield, Root’s daughter Amorette married Col. Horatio N. Case of Springfield and another daughter, Sarah, married Calvin Spencer of Hartford.