Yolo-Sacramento County CA Archives Biographies.....Tufts, J. B. 1824 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 17, 2007, 11:28 pm

Author: Lewis Publishing Co. (1891)

J. B. TUFTS, real-estate dealer at Davisville, is a highly esteemed pioneer of
California. He was born November 18, 1824, in Middlesex County, New Jersey, a
son of John M. and Mary Wilson (Davis) Tufts. The father, a native of New
Jersey, was educated at the West Point Military Academy, received a Lieutenant's
commission, and served in the regular army for a number of years, and was
married while in service. He retired from the army about 1820, and for twenty
years followed farming, when be retired from that and purchased a handsome
residence in Rahway, New Jersey, where he died in 1878, at the age of
eighty-eight years.

  The subject of this sketch, Mr. J. B. Tufts, was raised on a farm. At the age
of twenty-one years he went to New York city and learned the printer's trade,
continuing in the same five years. In 1849 he came to California, sailing from
New York on the bark Clyde, under command of Captain Kempton, with seventy-five
passengers on board. The trip was made around the Horn, occupying six months and
two days. Mr. Tufts landed in San Francisco November 2, 1849, well equipped for
starting a general merchandise store, having brought both building and goods
with him. His intention was to establish a wholesale commission house in San
Francisco, but on arriving he changed his mind, owing to the high price of real
estate and danger of fire, and he went to Sacramento with his building and
goods, upon a schooner which he chartered for $1,000; and there he erected his
two story building, 20 x 40 feet, and covered it with 17,000 pounds of iron,
which was worth in San Francisco at that time $2 a pound; and lumber was worth
$600 per 1,000 feet, for green sycamore; and the tin for roofing worth $100 per
box. The entire material for the building, which cost in New York only $825, and
freight $800, was worth in San Francisco on board ship $40,000!

  An incident is here worthy of relating. Among the goods brought to the coast
by Mr. Tufts were ten casks of so-called brandy, made from drugs, which in New
York cost only fifty cents per gallon. It was sold in Sacramento for $2.50 a
gallon and pronounced by the purchaser to be the finest he had seen in
California, and was sorry that he could not secure a hundred casks at the same
price!

  Mr. Tufts was in Sacramento during the flood of December, 1849, and loaded
thousands of dollars' worth of goods from his counters into row-boats. Remaining
in Sacramento until June, 1850, he sold out and joined his interests with
Senator Stewart in the restaurant business on Front street; but in a short time
he sold out, in July, and completed the purchase of an ox team and provisions.
With these he went to Ragtown, in the Nevada desert, and was there during the
well-remembered famine of that year. He and his partner, whom he had admitted,
killed their cattle and sold them at $5.00 per pound for fine horses, as money
was scarce, obtaining almost any price asked for their beef. He gave away most
of the provisions, not receiving a penny for them. In a short time they started
for the valley with over 400 horses, losing about forty head on the way, which
were stampeded and stolen by the Indians. Arriving at Sutterville, Mr. Tufts
started out in pursuit of pasture and range for the stock, and after an absence
of two days he returned to find that his partner had sold out the entire band
for $6,000 and departed for parts unknown, and thus was he financially reduced
to nothing, and $1,400 in debt! Possessed, however, of an extraordinary amount
of grit he located in Washington and built a hotel for Myrick & Hoag, and rented
it for $60 per month. Kept it seven months and cleared $3,700. He then bought a
half interest of Jacob Lewis in a ferry across the tule for $50, and in two
years took in over $50,000; then built a grade three miles in length across the
tule as a toll road. Kept it two years and sold out and removed to Putah Creek,
bought a ranch of 500 acres, at $17.50 per acre, but lost two-thirds of it, by
placing too much confidence in others; but some of the land he sold for $600 per
acre. In 1878 he located in Davisville, since which time he has been one of its
most active and energetic business men, and the enterprising town of Davisville
owes a large share of its prosperity to his judgment. He is now engaged chiefly
in real estate, building and improving the town generally. His last venture is
the purchase of 270 acres of Feather River bottom land, which is being all
planted in peaches for the New York and Chicago markets. He was married in 1849
to Miss Mary Kingsland, a native of New York city, and they have four sons and
three daughters.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California.

Illustrated, Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast
from the Earliest Period of its Occupancy to the Present Time, together with
Glimpses of its Prospective Future; Full-Page Steel Portraits of its most
Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of many of its Pioneers and also of
Prominent Citizens of To-day.

"A people that takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will
never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote
descendents." – Macauley.

CHICAGO
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1891.

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