Some were seeking the whale far in the northern seas; while others, less enterprising, were content to fish nearer home for all sorts of eatable dwellers in the sea, from halibut to herring.
Now a new day had begun for Fairport.

The original cabins began to tower in the air or encroach on the submissive gardens, as building after building was added by the prosperous owners.

Miniature villas, with a wealth of useless piazzas, appeared in the neighborhood of the town, and substantial wharves bordered one side of the quiet harbor, and gave a welcome to the shipping that seemed to grow and cluster there like the trees of a forest.
Fairport had passed the struggles of its early youth when our story begins, though there were gray-haired citizens yet within its borders who could tell how the bears had once looked in at their cabin windows, and the pine-trees had stood thick in what was now the main street of the rising town..