DESCENDANT LINE:
Peter TUFTS (1617 - 1700) & Mary PIERCE (~1627 - 1703)
James TUFTS (1649 - 1675) & Elizabeth WELLS (~1650 - 1674)
James TUFTS Jr. (1672 - 1733) & Ruth GRIMES (1681 - 1721)
James TUFTS III (1702 - 1767) & Lydia HALL (1705 - 1753)
Elizabeth TUFTS (1732 - 1754) & Samuel TEEL (1725 - 1773)
Jonathan TEEL (1754 - 1828) & Lydia CUTTER (1757 - 1831)
Thomas TEEL (1799 - 1873) & Susan FROST (1801 - 1866)
Abner Gardner TEELE Sr. (1837 - <1870) & Ellen SMITH (~1847 - )
Gardner Abner TEELE Jr.* (1868 - ) & Emma A (1868 - <1920)
Louis Gardner TEELE Sr. (1889 - 1982) & Grace BOULTON (1890 - 1943)
Louis Gardner TEELE Jr. (1913 - 2004) & Margaret Catherine SLINE (1943 - )


James Tufts died in the “Battle of Bloody Brook”, in King Philip’ War:

(James was) “Among the teamsters killed at Bloody Brook. The teamsters were hauling grain to storage, under the protection of Captain Thomas Lothrop and his soldiers.

“Like many others killed in the battle, James Tufts was young and unmarried. He did have a son, however: his namesake James Tufts. The child's mother was Elizabeth Wells, later Bathrick. Although the Tufts family initially denied that James had impregnated Elizabeth, the child was completely accepted into the Tufts family. Peter Tufts, grandfather of the child, raised him and named him in his will. Elizabeth Wells Bathrick died in 1674, a year before the battle at Bloody Brook. The child James Tufts was thus orphaned as an infant.

“The Battle of Bloody Brook took place during King Philip's War, a conflict between certain Native American tribes and colonists in New England in 1675 and 1676. King Philip was the English name of Metacomet, chief of the Wampanoag, who led perhaps a thousand warriors from several tribes. The war was touched off by the killing of a John Sassamon, a liaision between the colonists and Wampanoag, but it followed decades of expanding colonial settlements and challenges by displaced Native Americans.

“In June 1675 a gruesome cycle began. Colonists and Native Americans burned one another's settlements. Loyalties of tribes and individual Native Americans shifted, and mistrust fed on itself. Settlers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony grew so suspicious of Native Americans that they exiled some who still claimed to be their friends. (Colonists in Connecticut managed to keep somewhat better alliances with Native American tribes, and they enjoyed more safety.)

“King Philip's followers gathered strength during summer attacks on colonial settlements in Massachusetts. In September, assaults drove settlers to abandon their homes and gather in the blockhouse at Deerfield. Lacking food for winter, they dispatched some eighteen teamsters, under the guard of Captain Thomas Lothrop and about seventy newly recruited soldiers, to retrieve grain from their fields.

“The men loaded the harvest without incident and possibly began to feel too safe. On September 18, 1675, they attempted to haul the grain back to Deerfield. After traveling some distance, the convoy stopped to rest. The inexperienced soldiers laid their firearms in the carts of grain and picked some wild grapes nearby to eat.

“Unbeknown to Lothrop and his soldiers, a much larger force of hostile Native Americans had been shadowing them. While the colonial troops rested, the Native Americans attacked. As many as ninety colonial soldiers and teamsters were killed. Many, but not all, of their names have been preserved.

“Most of the dead were young men, and many were childless. Captain Lothrop, about 65 years old, also had no children. Among the teamsters, a father and three of his sons perished.

“The battle took place near Deerfield Village on the banks of Muddy Brook, afterward called Bloody Brook. The dead soldiers and teamsters were buried in a mass grave nearby. The bloodshed led the remaining settlers swiftly to abandon Deerfield.

“The mass grave was marked in 1838 with a flagstone bearing Lothrop's name and an inscription about the event; the site was excavated beforehand to confirm the presence of remains. A taller monument to the tragedy was later erected nearby. The grave, monument, and site of battle are located in South Deerfield, Franklin County, Massachusetts.