Marcellus Town Councilor Kevin O’Hara paints the village cemetery fence Saturday afternoon with supplies provided by the parks department. O’Hara had help from 14 volunteers over two weekends in painting about a third of the North Street side of the fence, which was erected June 3, 1899 and hadn’t received a new coat in nearly 20 years.

Marcellus Historian Peg Nolan started scraping the fence just days after O’Hara announced at the Sept. 6 town board meeting that the fence had tested negative for lead. She wanted to give volunteers a head start on the project.

“It’s a sacred ground and all our history lies in there,” she said. “It needed painting badly.”

O’Hara hopes to finish the North Street side of the fence before winter.