Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Tufts, John

TUFTS, John, clergyman, b. in Medford, Mass., 5 May, 1689; d. in Amesbury, Mass., August, 1750. He was graduated at Harvard in 1708, and was minister at Newbury, Mass., from 1714 till 1738. He published “Introduction to the Singing of Psalm-Tunes, with a Collection of Tunes in Three Parts” (Boston, 1715), and a sermon, “Humble Call to Archippus” (1829). His work on the singing of psalm-tunes was the first publication of the kind in New England, if not in this country, and was regarded as a great novelty, since not more than four or five tunes were known in many of the congregations, and those were sung by rote.