Freeling Tufts was born September 10, 1844 in Litchfield, New Hampshire. He was educated at the New London (New Hampshire) Institute, receiving his training as a civil engineer. He worked in this profession for five years on the Lake Erie railroad, for three years on the Chicago and Northwestern line, and for three years on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific line.

In 1877 Tufts moved to Atchison, Kansas and was employed as an assistant engineer on the Central Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad. By 1879, Tufts was promoted to chief engineer of that line.

In that same year Tufts began to dabble in mortgage and real estate deals while still an employee of the Union Pacific. By the middle 1880s he was involved in a number of financial ventures, including acting as an investor in the Luray, Paradise, Sylvan Grove and Lucas town companies, in Lincoln (Kansas) Land, Investment and Improvement Company, and other ventures in Lincoln and Russell counties in Kansas.

In 1893 Tufts was appointed receiver for the insolvent Kansas Trust and Banking Company, a leading farm credit company in Atchison, Kansas, whose president was John J. Ingalls, an early settler in Kansas and U.S. Senator serving the state for 18 years. Tufts' efforts to revive the company failed, but he continued his involvement in the real estate business until his death in 1905.