HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MEDFORD, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, IN 1630, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1855.
Charles Brooks, Ed.

Dr. John Thomas was a medical student under his care, and, at the commencement of the Revolution, commanded at Dorchester Heights, and afterwards at Ticonderoga, where he died of the smallpox.

The following lines were from the pen of his son, Dr. Cotton Tufts, of Weymouth :--

Upon the death of my honored father, Simon Tufts, Esq., who died suddenly, Jan. 31, 1747, in the evening.

Death seized, and snatched my tender father hence,
To live enthroned in happiness immense.
Religion, grace, and truth possessed his soul;
And heaven-born love he breathed from pole to pole.
His grateful country owned his signal worth,
And gave him public life in civil birth.
A friend to all mankind; true to every cause,
Where bound by virtue or his country's laws.
Sweet peace he loved, and peace he oft prolonged
When jarring parties wished themselves revenged.
To vice, the wretch would tell his just disdain:
He ne'er the sword of justice held in vain.
The poor he fed; their wants he oft supplied:
The rich and poor, for health, on him relied.
The church and public spread around his grave
Tears: these could ne'er their friend and patron save.
Had tears from this event the husband dear,
The best of fathers, friend, relation near,
Detained, he still had blessed our loving sight,
Nor had we seen the sorrows of that night.
Methinks I hear some blissful seraph say:--
‘Mark well, my friend, the strait, the shining way:
that is the path thy Christian neighbor trod,--
The path that ends in happiness and God.’

Rev. Dr. Colman, of Boston, in his sermon, preached at Medford, April 6, 1735, after the death of his daughter, Mrs. Jane Turell, speaks thus of Dr. Tufts: “I leave a grateful record of my particular obligation to the pious and beloved physician of the town, who, to and even beyond his power, has always ministered gratis to the pastor and his family. The Lord show kindness to the house of his servant!”

1725, he built the house, which yet stands, on the southeast corner of Forest and Main Streets, in the market, fronting the bridge; and it well represents the second style of building adopted by our ancestors.