The impression which Holyoke makes upon its visitors is of modern thrift and growth. Travellers by railway who enter the city from the north, look with interest at the great dam, crossing the river from the Holyoke to the South Hadley Falls shore. Rounding the curve, the large brick buildings, spires and chimneys of the city come suddenly into view, the tall tower of the granite city hall rising high above the rest. The buildings are modern in structure and architecture. Little is found here that bears the moss and rime of age. Less than forty years ago, when the railroad was still a novelty in the Connecticut Valley, a party of capitalists came to view the water-power along the rocky bed of the Connecticut River at the point called the Great Rapids, or Falls of South Hadley, which extended over a mile and a half and had a total fall of 60 feet. The volume of water was gauged and found to aggregate a power equal to 30,000 horse-power. This was in 1847. The next Legislature was petitioned by Thomas H. Perkins, Geo. W. Lyman, Edmund Dwight and others for an act of incorporation as the Hadley Falls Company, "for the purpose of constructing and maintaining a dam across the Connecticut River, and one or more locks and canals in connection with said dam; and of creating a water power to be used by the said corporation for manufacturing articles from cotton, wood, iron, wool and other materials, and to be sold to other persons and corporations, to be used for manufacturing or mechanical purposes and also for the purposes of navigation." The capital stock was fixed at $4,000.000. The Hadley Falls Company purchased the property and franchise of the South Hadley Falls Locks and Canal Company, and extinguished the fishing rights existing above the location of the dam. In the year 1847, this territory embraced by the river-curve had fourteen houses, a grist-mill and one little shop. There was also a small cotton-mill. From the river, the land rises to the westward, and a mile or more back, on the highway leading from Northampton to Springfield, were two hamlets of farmhouses. Many of these are still standing and are all that this very modern city can show as memorials of a past generation. From the year 1786 the section had been known as "Ireland or Third Parish of West Springfield." It had its two little white meeting-houses, Baptist and Congregational, a modest academy of learning, a country tavern, and its full quota of New England customs, traditions and ideas. Nine daily stages passed over this highway. Families moving from one river-town to another usually transported their goods by the flat-boats on the river.