husband, and sold the same land, May 22, 1693, to "Henry Brown, Jr.,
of Salisbury, yeoman." These facts show that this portion of Mr.
Peters's lands did go, according to the agreement when he left
America, to the family of John Winthrop, Jr.

Whether he had erected a house on this grant is not known. From his
characteristic energy, activity, and promptitude, it is probable that
he had begun to clear it. In agriculture, as in every thing else, he
gave a decisive impulse. It is stated that he had a particular design
to attempt the culture of hemp. He introduced many implements of
labor, and started new methods of improvement. He disclosed to the
producer of agricultural growths the idea of raising what the land was
most capable of yielding in abundance, in greater quantities than were
needed for local consumption, and finding for the surplus an outside
market. He is allowed to have introduced the coasting and foreign
trade on an intelligent and organized basis, and to have promoted
ship-building and the export of the products of the forests and the
fields generally to the Southern plantations, the West Indies, and
even more distant points. If he had remained longer in the country,
the farming interests, and the settlers in what was afterwards called
Salem Village, within which his tract was situated, would have felt
his great influence. As it was, he undoubtedly did much to inspire a
zeal for improvement. His town residence was on the south-western
corner of Essex and Washington Street, then known as "Salem Corner,"
where the office of the Horse-railroad Company now is. The lot was a
quarter of an acre. Roger Williams probably had resided there, and
sold to Peters, who was his successor in the ministry of the First
Church, and whose attorney sold it to Benjamin Felton, in 1659. The
range of ground included within what are now Washington, Essex,
Summer, and Chestnut Streets, and extending to the South River, as it