You won't know how good your water is going to be until you get a Ward Labs report. Get that and go from there.
A small town can be friendly. Most people living there appreciate owning their own land/property. Respect their space and get to know them. Be choosy about where you live. There's good and bad in every section of every town, but you really don't want to live next to some meth head, or some dirty redneck who leaves crap all over his yard.
Mostly be friendly and offer to help people around you and in time you might even start a neighborhood block party or something and have friends to hang out and brew beer with.
To extend: if you demonstrate your commitment to the community through volunteering as well as supporting financially worthy projects (to the extent you can), others will be much faster to accept you. Join a service group, maybe a church if you tend that way, the school PTA or PTO, maybe coach a kids team. Not all of it
, but doing even some tells people you care.
Rural areas and small towns tend to be much more into self-reliance; the local government likely has little extra revenue to give away in whatever form, so people tend to rely on each other and themselves.
I live in a small rural college town; during the school year the population is slightly more than 11,000, but during the summer, maybe 5000 or so. There is only one word I can use to describe small town life during the summer here: delicious. I hate big cities, they give me the willies.
I love knowing business owners; I walk into the place, and they know me and I know them. I walk down the street and see people I know, unlike cities where I feel like an absolute social isolate.
There's an old saying about small towns: the best feature of small towns is everyone knows everyone. The worst feature? Same thing.
Ask your local friends and neighbors about recommendations as to where to bank, get your car fixed, find a plumber, and so on. And make sure they know that someone recommended you use them. The implicit message is that if you aren't satisfied, you'll tell the neighbor, and the tradesman/woman will lose not just you, but the recommendations of the other.
And pay them ASAP. My local plumber has probably 40 jobs pending at any time. But if i need something Pronto, he'll take care of me. Why? I pay him. Seems simple, but you'd be surprised how often local tradespeople are stiffed. Seems antithetical to what small town life is about, but it's true.
I can't imagine what it's like to spend 2 or 3 hours in a car or train every day commuting. My commute is about 4 1/2 minutes, 5 minutes if I have to wait for an Amish buggy.