Our story began in 1833 when New Orleans investor Pierre Marly purchased the rearmost section of Macarty Plantation in the fledgling Town of Carrollton. Such massive land sales, conducted by Canal & Banking Company, helped fund the construction of New Basin Canal, a planned commercial waterway connecting Lake Pontchartrain with Downtown.

Marly, an enterprising free man of color, owned several prominent French Quarter parcels. Yet Faubourg Marly – an undeveloped “back of town” (suburban) tract extending from the canal’s left bank toward Claiborne – became his most enduring family legacy. We honor him today as the namesake of Marlyville, on the cusp of our neighborhood’s bicentennial.