Bravely on the river

"The Oxbow'' of the Connecticut River, by Thomas Cole (1836).

"It is a wonder that Norwood {based on Northampton, Mass.} was ever allowed to venture so near to the low grounds of the Connecticut {River}; for it was early settled, not far from thirty years after the Pilgrims' landing. How the temptation to build up the top of the highest hill was resisted, we know not.''

-- Henry Ward Beecher in his novel Norwood: Or, Village Life in New England (1868).