and, before long, acts of the General Court, regulating the matter.  This was the origin of what were called “press-roads,” or “farm-roads,” or “gate-roads.”  When a proprietor concluded it to be for his interest to do so, he would fence in the road on both sides where it crossed his land, and remove the gates or bars from each end.  Ultimately, the road, if convenient for long travel, would be fenced in for a great distance, and become a permanent “public highway.”  In all these stages of progress, it would be called a “highway.”  The fee would remain with the several proprietors through whose lands it passed; and, if travel should forsake it for a more eligible route, it would be discontinued, and the road-track, enclosed in the fields to which it originally belonged, be obliterated by the plough.  Many of the “highways,” by which the farmers passed over each other’s lands to get to the meeting-house or out to public roads, in 1692, have thus disappeared, while some have hardened into permanent public roads used to this day.  When thus fully and finally established, it became a “town road,” and if leading some distance into the interior, and through other towns, was called a “country road.”  The early name of “path” continued some time in use long after it had got to be worthy of a more pretentious title.  The old “Boston Path,” by which the country was originally penetrated, long retained that name.  It ran through the southern and western part of Salem Village by the Gardners, Popes, Goodales, Flints, Needhams, Swinnertons, Houltons, and so on towards Ipswich and Newbury.

On the 30th of September, 1648, Governor Winthrop, writing to his son John, says “they are well at Salem, and your uncle is now beginning to distil.  Mr. Endicott hath found a copper mine in his own ground.  Mr. Leader hath tried it.  The furnace runs eight tons per week, and their bar iron is as good as Spanish.”  Whatever may be thought by some of the logic which infers that “all is well” in Salem, because they are beginning “to distil;” and however little has, as yet, resulted here from the discovery of copper-mines, or the manufacture of iron, the foregoing extract shows the zeal and enthusiasm with which the wealthier settlers were applying themselves to the development of the capabilities of the country.

Mr. Downing seems to have resided permanently on his farm, and to have been identified with the agricultural portion of the community.  His house-lot in the town bounded south on Essex Street, extending from Newbury to St. Peter’s Street.  He may not, perhaps, have built upon it for some time, as it long continued to be called “Downing’s Field.”  Two of his daughters married sons of Thomas Gardner:  Mary married Samuel; and Ann, Joseph.  They came into possession of the “Downing Field.”  Mary was the mother of John, the progenitor of a large branch of the Gardner family.  Mr. Downing had another large lot in the town, which, on the 11th of February, 1641, was sold to John Pickering, described