History
The Town of Marcellus was built around Nine Mile Creek and an appreciation of the Creek is necessary for understanding the Town's history. The Nine Mile Creek valley was known for its very productive agricultural soils and its "deep picturesque valley" of eastern hemlocks. Since the late 1700s some 25 mills were established along Nine Mile Creek. Deacon Samuel Rice and Judge Dan Bradley built the first mill on the creek between 1795 and 1796. While the mill is no longer standing it was reportedly built south of the village. The Crown Mill, which is located in the village on State Route 174, is one of the few old mills still standing. Robert and Thomas Dyer built it in 1812. The mill has since changed hands many times.
Interest in rail transportation peaked in the late 19th century. After railroad fever took hold in the 1870s, a short-line railroad was constructed that connected Otisco Lake to Marcellus. Through incorporation of the Marcellus & Otisco Lake Railway Company, the rail line was eventually completed on May 25, 1905. The project was more difficult than anticipated, with 46 curves constructed in just 9.05 miles (14.56 km) of track. Connection with the Fontney, Otisco Lake's ferryboat, made transportation of people and goods relatively easier. The M&OL Railway was abandoned on July 15, 1937, after roads for motorcars were constructed in the region. The short-line railroad was a unique chapter in the town's history with only an empty railroad grade and an old station building remaining. The grade and arches nevertheless are still a prominent feature of the lower reaches of the creek within Marcellus.
Read more about this topic: Ninemile Creek (Onondaga Lake)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)