The Delectable Mountains by Arthur Willis Colton

Not quite two centuries of human life have gone quietly in Wimberton, and for the most part it has been on Main and Chester Streets. Main Street is a quarter of a mile long and three hundred feet wide, with double roads, and between them a clean lawn shaded by old elms. Chester Street is narrow and crowded with shops, and runs from the middle of Main down-hill to the railway and the river. It is the business street for Wimberton and the countryside of fifteen miles about. Main Street is surrounded by old houses of honorable frontage, two churches, and the Solley Institute, which used to be called "Solley's Folly" by frivolous aliens.

Mr. Solley, who owned the mines up the river and the foundries that have been empty and silent these many years, founded it in 1840. At the time I remember best the Institute had twenty-one trustees, lady patronesses, matrons, and nurses; and three beneficiaries, or representatives of the "aged, but not destitute, of Hamilton County." That seemed odd to the alien.