BY TOM FONTANA
Correspondent
Henry Jeffers was the founder of Jeffers Tree Farm, with his first planting on the family property in 1929. PHOTO COURTESY JEFFERS FARMS
It’s early on a Saturday morning one or two weeks before Christmas. It’s still dark. It’s freezing cold.
Dad and the boys are just finishing their morning chores in the dairy barn. Mom and the girls are in the kitchen stacking flapjacks while warming maple syrup tapped and canned fresh last spring.
The men shake off their boots and stand in front of the fireplace warming their hands. The glaring orange sun shoots its first rays over the distant blue ridge. Dad sees snowflakes begin to gently pile up on the window sill.
“Today’s the day,” he gruffly mumbles.
The family cheers with excitement!
Today they will go to Jeffers Farm to pick out this year’s fresh cut Christmas tree.
Henry Jeffers began planting fir and spruce trees on his family’s land in Lenox Twp. in 1929. According to current farm manager Jen
Jeffers Tree Farm sells nearly 700 trees to families who visit the farm during the holiday season for a fresh-cut Christmas tree. As an alternative, live trees are also sold that can be decorated for Christmas then replanted in the yard in the spring. PHOTO BY TOM FONTANA
Greenwood, selling Christmas trees was not his plan.
“Henry was in the first agricultural class to graduate from Cornell,” Greenwood explains. “He was a conservationist, and intended to create a controlled habitat to protect plants and wildlife.”
It took over 12 years for Henry’s first evergreens to mature, and when locals began asking him if they could cut some for Christmas trees, a business began.
“For many years, it was just a seasonal business,” Greenwood
Henry Jeffers (sitting center) inspects the vast rows of fir and spruce trees ready to be picked out and cut for family Christmas trees in the 1950s. PHOTO COURTESY JEFFERS FARMS
says. “It takes a lot of work all year round just to grow these trees. But eventually trees of all sizes began to be grown also for landscaping purposes.”
Late in the 1790s, Henry’s ancestor Nathanial Jeffers, who fought in the Revolutionary War, bought a few acres of farmland in Susquehanna County. Over the years, more adjoining lands were purchased. Today, Jeffers Tree Farm covers about 2,100 acres, straddling Lenox and Harford townships.
“For many years, Jeffers farm was a traditional place to go for the family Christmas tree,” Greenwood says. “But in the last 30 years, things have changed.”
The farm sells about 600-700 fresh cut trees during the holiday season. However, the public can no longer cut their own trees, as the chance of someone getting hurt is an insurance risk. A family can tag a tree several months before Christmas, and Jeffers will cut that tree fresh for them when they are ready for it.
Jeffers also offers live trees for decorating indoors, then replanting in the spring. In addition, the farm donates several Christmas trees each year to charities.
A large part of Jeffers’ yearly business is in landscaping, from private residences to large commercial companies. “We sell trees from the Carolinas to Maine,” Greenwood says.
Although the cut-your-own tree is a family tradition of the past, it is still a popular ritual each year for a family to pick out their Christmas tree together.
“We’ve had families from places like New York City and Michigan come all the way back here to get their tree,” Greenwood says. “They remember coming here with their great-grandparents to pick out and cut the family tree.”
Probably on a snowy morning after barn chores and flapjacks, with the family piled in the back of grandad’s horse-drawn wagon, snuggled together to fend off the cold, filled with the anticipation of later decorating their Christmas tree while sipping hot cocoa and egg nog.
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