Marcy

Marcy is not a town but rather a township made up of several hamlets, Stittville being the largest. These hamlets originated with groups of various religions and nationalities, such as Welch, Methodist, and Baptist. The one thing they all had in common was their desire to survive and prosper. The answer was in farming and all the hard work that had to be done every day. In the late 1850s, everything changed when the railroad came to town. Travel outside the farm fences became easy and enjoyable. Residents could catch the train and, in only 20 minutes, be in Utica, a whole different world, with stores and merchandise unlike anything on the farm. Today the farming has all but gone, and Marcy is largely a bedroom community with a mixture of small shops, electricity and water distribution systems, and higher education institutions.

Raymond F. Ball, born in nearby Utica, has been a resident of Marcy for more than 50 years and town historian since 1988. The photographs in Marcy are from his collection and several other private collections.