"I have just returned from an excursion of Rock River, one of the most beautiful of our western streams. It flows through the high prairies, and not like most streams of the West, through an alluvial country. The current is rapid and the pellucid (translucent) waters glide over a bottom of sand and pebbles. It admirers declare that its shores unite the beauties of the Hudson and the Connecticut. The banks on either side are high and bold; majestic trees grow solitary or in clumps and back to the bluffs extends a fine array of agricultural region, rich prairies and undulating surfaces interspersed with groves. At the foot of the bluffs break springs of clear water, which hasten in little brooks to the river. In a drive which I took up the left bank in the river, I saw three of these in the space of as many miles. One of these is the spring which supplies the town of Dixon with water. In the neighborhood of Dixon a class of immigrants have established themselves (in 1841) more opulent and luxurious in their tastes than most of the settlers of the western country. Some of these have built elegant homes on the left bank of the river, amidst the noble trees, which seem to have grown for that very purpose."

Bryant, who was born in 1794 and died in 1868, became known as the "Father of American Poetry" and is probably best remembered by historians as teh man who brought young Abraham Lincoln to New York City for the famous Cooper's Union address that started Lincoln on the way to the White House.