There is quite a bit
of sporting history recorded in the book Saint John: A Sporting Tradition 1785-1985 by Brian Flood and Richard Papenhausen. Chapter 4 specifically describes the
origins of hockey in the city and even contends the sport may have been first
played on the lakes of Dartmouth Nova Scotia.
The chapter opens with the quote:
“Big Tuffy, Little Tuffy, Old Tuffy’s son. Big Tuffy
shot a goal,-St. John’s won.”
The footnote states this and other material
used for the chapter is from the The Tufts Scrapbooks Vol. 3, New Brunswick
Museum. These would be fun to discover.
There are many images at their Balls, Bats
and Boats exhibit: http://website.nbm-mnb.ca/BBB/exhibit.asp?lang=en&cid=1&page=&start=0
This image is rough but the book has a much
better copy. It shows F.L. Tufts in the front row (left) and Andy Tufts in the
second row (center).
The above quote was
the cheer from 1898 when Andy Tufts led the Canadian Winter Port hockey team
(of St. John) to a 5-0 win over the All Halifax team. Apparently it was quite a
rivalry. The author goes on to discuss the first hockey ever played. While Montreal
and Kingston (Ontario) claim to have had played in 1855, there is the
possibility it was played nearer to 1828 in the lakes of Dartmouth. There had
to be some Tufts on that ice as it home to many Tufts families. There is more
discussion of the birthplace of hockey here: http://www.birthplaceofhockey.com/origin/overview/
It appears that nearby Windsor, Nova Scotia
lays claim to the first organized ice hockey. They relate quite a bit about the
first hockey sticks coming from the Mic Mac Indians of Tufts cove and other
places.
Book on Amazon:
Update 11/12/2014 These 2 Tufts sons appear to be the descendents of Hugh Kearns Tufts the immigrant from Ireland. They will be detailed in a later chapter of the Nova Scotia Tufts
I am looking for any info on george david tufts-apparently murdered around 1970-he would be my mothers bio father-she was adopted-I might be going in the wrong direction in the tuft family-I have discovered there were alot of them! Her bio mothers name was mabel huckins she was born 1930 and is still alive-they were not married thank you for any info you may have I have gotten some info from ancestry
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