[3] He was the seventh child of eight of Mr. John McLeod, an educator and local part-time politico, and Clarissa Catherine Hartley Downs.

[4] Downs attended a one-room schoolhouse called Shady Grove until his high school years when his family relocated to Asheville, North Carolina.

During his Masters coursework, Downs was employed at the New York Library and later as a librarian for two years (1929 to 1931) at Colby College in Maine.

This publication enjoyed a great deal of success and was subsequently translated into many languages.,[2][3][4] Downs was also known for his accession talents and developed a proclivity for rare books regarding the topic of American folklore.

Aided by Mr. Gordon N. Ray, Downs' talents would eventually facilitate realization of the private papers of noted authors H. G. Wells and Carl Sandburg.