The Revolution · Profile

John Tufts (b. 1754)

b. 1754 · Winter Hill, Charlestown (now Somerville), Mass.

Biography

John Tufts, the second son of Peter Tufts of Winter Hill and Anne Adams Tufts, was a young man of about twenty on the morning his father rode out on Paul Revere’s alarm. Ellen Chase, drawing on Jones’s Under Colonial Roofs, tells what followed:

“Paul Revere's alarm took Peter to the front, his son John, a lad of eighteen, being charged to stay behind and take care of things. The boy, however, could not be pacified at home and followed on, up beyond Lexington. While crossing one of the hills he met Elizabeth Perry, crying and running from her blazing home. He guarded her to her relatives and three years later made her his bride.”

Ellen Chase, The Beginnings of the American Revolution (1910), vol. III, p. 99. Page (Internet Archive)

“John Tufts, the second son of Peter of Winter Hill, was a scientific farmer and gardener. During the Revolution, his father established him on the farm the house of which is now rented by the Somerville Historical society.”

Edward C. Booth, “The Tufts Family in Somerville,” Historic Leaves (Somerville Historical Society), vol. 1 (1902–03), p. 23. Text (Perseus)

Booth calls that house “the headquarters of General Lee” (p. 23); it stayed in the family through his son Oliver. Elizabeth Perry was, Booth notes, a granddaughter of James Tufts of Medford. They had thirteen children, among them John Jr.; Benjamin, a milk farmer on Washington Street; Oliver, who kept the old Lee house until his death in 1883; Leonard, father of James W. Tufts, the maker of soda-water apparatus; and Asa (Booth, pp. 23–24).

Service Record

Town: Winter Hill, Charlestown (now Somerville), Mass. · Dates: b. 1754

The Lexington alarm story above is family tradition as retold by Chase (1910). No record of his service has yet been matched in Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors.

Family Connection

Father: Peter Tufts of Winter Hill. Mother: Anne Adams Tufts. Brother: Peter Tufts Jr.. Nephew: Peter Tufts the surveyor.

Relatives with profiles on this site: mother Anne Adams Tufts; brother Peter Tufts Jr.; nephew Peter Tufts the surveyor; uncle Timothy Tufts; grandfather Peter Tufts (1697–1776); sister Ann Tufts Richardson (b. 1757); sister Elizabeth Tufts Swan (b. 1758); brother Joseph Tufts (b. 1760); sister Lydia Tufts Gray (b. 1762); brother Asa Tufts (1764–1828); brother Thomas Tufts of Lexington (1766–1830); sister Lucy Tufts Osgood (b. 1767); sister Rebecca Tufts Adams (1769–c. 1848); sister Sarah Tufts Adams.

Spouse(s)

Authoritative IDs / Index Numbers

SourceID / status
Perseus person index (auth=)auth=tufts,john. This is a name-level key shared by every John Tufts in Perseus, not a personal ID. Use it with the passages cited on this page.
Find a Grave memorialNote: Pending further work.
Brooks, History of Medford (1855) register no.Note: Pending further work.
Mass. Soldiers and SailorsNot yet checked for this page
DAR ancestor no.Note: Pending further work.
FamilySearch IDNote: Pending further work.
Geni profileNote: Pending further work.
WikiTree IDNote: Pending further work.
Town / vital recordsMedford VRs not yet checked by volume and page

Only IDs confirmed against dates and family are given as matches. “Not yet checked” means the source has not been searched; “Checked, not found” means it was searched without a match.

⚑ Unverified

Birth: Adams (p. 973) gives Nov. 24, 1754; Booth (p. 23) says 1755. Chase’s “a lad of eighteen” does not fit either (he would have been twenty). Death: Note: Pending further work. Marriage date (“three years later,” i.e., about 1778): Note: Pending further work.

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