Born at Aurora, Indiana, on the 12th of July, 1840, and is the son of Servitus Tufts and Emily nee Dudley. He was raised at Muscatine, Iowa, and in early life imbibed a taste for agricultural pursuits. After passing through the curriculum of the common schools of the city he spent two years at Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa, which institution he left in 1858. He immediately commenced to improve his farm in Cedar county, Iowa, three miles northeast of Wilton. In 1872 he built a beautiful villa, one of the most ornate and commodious residences in the state. He has always been a man of high moral character, and an earnest advocate of the temperance cause. From the outset he took a leading position in his community, and has rarely been without some local office of trust and responsibility, his education and natural gifts seeming to fit him especially for the position of a leader. In 1869 he was elected to the lower branch of the thirteenth general assembly of Iowa, and served as chairman of the committee on suppression of intemperance. In 1871 he was reelected and was made chairman of the committee on claims against the state, and instituted a system by which all claims having been once passed on by the legislature are placed on record, indexed, and the result indicated for future reference. This has been the means of saving time of the legislature and money to the state. In 1873 he was a member of the extra session which made and passed what is known as the "New Code" of statutes of the state. In 1873 he was again elected and served as chairman of the committee on railroads, then the most important committee in the body, and is one of the authors of the present railroad law of the state regulating freight and passenger tariffs. He was among the most intelligent and useful members of the house, and left behind a record of integrity and wisdom. In 1874 he was nominated by the republicans of the second congressional district of Iowa, and elected to the forty-fourth congress. During the canvass he was challenged by his democratic opponent, Hon. J. L. Sheehan, a leading lawyer of the state, to a joint discussion, which Mr. Tufts promptly accepted, and met his competitor at all the towns and cities in the district, and though the district had polled a democratic majority the previous year, running considerably ahead of his ticket. In congress he had but little opportunity to distinguish himself. He was a member of the committee on Indian affairs, and also a member of the special committee to inquire into the management of Indian affairs. Although he has had much experience in public life, yet he is somewhat diffident as a public speaker, and consequently is not obtrusive in public assemblies, but when occasion requires can express his thoughts freely and even eloquently. He has strong convictions of duty, and the courage to stand by them in the face of opposition. Mr. Tufts is a member, of the Masonic order. In religious sentiment, he adheres to Protestantism. On the 10th of October, 1861, he married Miss Susan Shaw Cooke, daughter of Henry Cooke, Esq., of Williamsburg, Iowa, formerly of Mainville, Ohio.
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