This is the first in a series taking a look at the hamlets and villages

that joined together 175 years ago to become the town of Clifton Park

Serene, even sleepy, Vischer Ferry sits on the banks of the Mohawk River in southern Clifton Park. Trees and Greek Revival homes line the streets where wagons once bustled by on their way to the Erie Canal.

''Vischer Ferry is the opposite of what people think of when they think of Clifton Park,'' said Town Historian John Scherer.

Scherer may be a bit biased in his love for the quiet village. He moved there in 1971, first into one of his treasured ''Greek Temples on the Towpath,'' as a book he wrote on the village is titled, then into a stately federalist home.

Lee Palmer was also a newcomer to the village, but not the town. The former director of community development had rented a duplex on Blue Barns Road.

''I came home one night and found a for sale sign on it,'' he said. ''Hence I was motivated to buy a house.''

He found himself with a Greek Revival fixer-upper in eastern Vischer Ferry, a community he had admired on trips to the Vischer Ferry Nature Preserve while working for the town.

Palmer tore out the walls, took out the windows and patched a hole in the foundation that was ''big enough for a large dog to walk through.''

Scherer and Palmer join neighbors whose families have lived in the village for generations.

''We're among the new people,'' acknowledged Fran Finkbeiner, who, with her husband, Herman, built a home a mile outside of the village in 1965.

First to the village was Nicholas Vischer, who built a house for himself and his wife in 1735.

The home still stands today on the banks of the Mohawk River not far from the village firehouse.

His son, Eldert, began the rope-pull ferry that would lend its name to the village. The ferry between the village and Schenectady brought people to Vischer Ferry, and by 1800, a tavern and general store were built there.

''It really began to boom during the Erie Canal era,'' Scherer said.

In the times of the Erie Canal, Vischer Ferry was a working class community, he said. The town's Greek Revival homes were built by carpenters who worked at the dry docks along the canal.

As it turns out, from a preservationist's point of view, Vischer Ferry got lucky.

For one, its people were not wealthy. They didn't have the money to put the additions on or reside the homes along the Mohawk.

So when newcomers like Lee Palmer arrived on the scene, with an eye for the beauty of his home's past, the house had not been ruined by ill-thought-out renovations.But for red tape and political bickering, Vischer Ferry could have seen its own pre-Northway connection with Capitol District commuters in the early1900s.

For two years, a bridge spanned the Mohawk between Vischer Ferry and Niskayuna where Vischer's Ferry once ran. It was destroyed by ice in 1902 and never rebuilt.

''Had they built the bridge, the development of our town would have been much different,'' Scherer said.

But political and geographical disagreements got in the way.

For 18 years, from 1910 to 1928, bills were introduced into the State Legislature asking for a new bridge connecting Saratoga and Schenectady counties.

Each bill failed to make it to law, and Vischer Ferry remained in relative isolation until the Northway arrived in 1959.

Lee Palmer said he wasn't specifically looking toward Vischer Ferry as a place to move to.

But he liked the idea of living in a hamlet, of fixing up a house with his father, a carpenter, and, he joked, just having a home without a for sale sign in front of it.

The Finkbeiners sought the village out, Fran said.

''It's an ideal location,'' she said. ''It's just a beautiful area to live in.''

Palmer said Vischer Ferry is a good place to live, but not unique.

''It looks and feels like a community,'' he said. ''It's not much different than other neighborhoods - it's just the houses are old.''

The village lost its villageness with its tavern, general store and post office, Palmer said.

''We talk about that sometimes - if the tack shop was still a general store,'' he said. ''But it's the real world Ð it's the 21st century.''

While he recognizes the limitations of Vischer Ferry in modern-day Clifton Park, Palmer is proud of his hamlet's history. He recalls having lunch with two of his neighbors, chemical engineers at GE.

''They were both wildly avid about the Erie Canal,'' he said. ''I, too, became fascinated by the canal.''

One of these neighbors is Herb Finkbeiner, whose wife, Fran said the village has changed very little in the nearly 40 years she's lived there. But she does worry about development.

''Vischer Ferry is a special little place,'' she said. ''It would benefit from less traffic from the outside world. It invades the territory.''

Fran Finkbeiner said she and most of her neighbors would like to see the sleepy village stay that way.

''There are little islands in Clifton Park,'' she said, the hamlets of yesteryear like Jonesville and Elnora. The rest of the town is taken up by subdivisions, she said.

''What Vischer Ferry isn't is a subdivision.''