Historic leaves, volume 3, April, 1904 - January, 1905

This was, doubtless, the son of Dr. Simon Tufts, the first physician of Medford. Cotton Tufts was born May 3, 1734, and graduated from Harvard College in 1749. Our record shows that he was master of the ferule at the early age of seventeen. Later he married a Miss Smith, sister, it is said, of President John Adams' wife, and resided in Weymouth. He was president of the Massachusetts Medical Association about 1776. His funeral sermon, preached by the Rev. Jacob Norton, is still extant. Wyman, against the name of Joseph Russell (Walter3, Joseph2, William1), born August 25, 1703, says that he kept school about 1724. As the place is not designated, we may not be justified in including him among Charlestown teachers. He may have taught in Menotomy (West Cambridge), where the family lived. But the fact that the historian thus alludes to him would seem to imply that he taught on this side of the line. If not a pedagogue of Charlestown himself, he became the progenitor of a line of teachers through his grandson, Philemon R. Russell, of whom we hope to speak later on.

The little cemetery on Phipps street has preserved from oblivion one other name, that of Mistress Rebeckah Anderson, the only one of the worthy ‘dames’ of that early period whose name has come down to us. The headstone reads:—

Here Lyes Buried

ye Body of Mrs.
Rebeckah Anderson (Late School-Mistress in

this Town) who Died
March 4th, Anno Dom. 1743-4 in the 49th
Year of Her Age.
Close by is the grave of her sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Phillips, the famous midwife, who held her commission from the bishop of London. The name of Rebeckah Anderson, who led the van, and that, too, so far in advance of the great army of female teachers, who since her time have battled faithfully for the cause, ought to be treasured by her sisters of to-day. We give this sentiment: As their number never faileth, so may her grave, hereafter, never lack a flower or a sprig of green for memory's sake.