John Oldman was the first European to set foot on the land that is now Framingham. In 1633 he led a group of explorers down a Native American trail called Old Connecticut Path that is now Framingham's oldest road. The first European settler was John Stone, who built a home on the west bank of the Sudbury River in 1647. Starting in 1693, families from Salem came to escape the Salem witch trials. They settled in an area of Framingham that is still called Salem's End today.