From the Introduction:

"You cannot step in the same river twice," is an ancient expression aptly describing the dynamic interaction between permanence and change in the river systems and culture of Connecticut. Human history is shaped by rivers that provide water, food, a source of power and a means of waste disposal. Although the total surface area of rivers and streams is small compared to that of the oceans and land masses, rivers are ecosystems intensely used by humans. As a locator for settlements, a source of sustenance, and a power supply for industry, rivers are closely connected with development and urbanization. In fact, there is hardly a city in the entire state of Connecticut that is not situated on, or at the mouth of, a river.

There are 305,625 miles of warm water fishing streams in the United States, eighteen miles of which are the Mill River. Beginning eighteen miles from the Long Island Sound, the Mill River is small in the grand scale of North America. At its source in a wooded suburban swamp in Cheshire County, approximately 210 feet above sea level, the Mill River is hardly two feet in width and less than a foot in depth as it begins its journey southeast to the sea through Connecticut. The state of Connecticut - extending east to west about ninety-five miles, north to south about sixty miles - is itself a small state, less than two percent of the land area of Texas. But despite its size, just as the "Mississippi, the Ganges, and the Nile, those journeying atoms from the Rocky Mountains...have a kind of personal importance in the annals of the world," so does the Mill River have importance for the history of New Haven.