Town finds its roots when tree falls
Published: December 18, 2005
ROAD SUPERVISOR John Eldred was the first on the crime scene. It was 5 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 10. Eldred was out of bed before the sun to check whether roads had iced over in this mile-square hamlet in the northwestern corner of New Jersey.
As he eased his truck through the center of town, Eldred felt something was missing. And then, he saw it: The Christmas tree in the town square was down, tossed across the asphalt near Lakeland Bank and Johnny’s Barber Shop.
Like yesterday’s trash.
Vandalism has evolved into an unfortunate part of American life, perhaps a far-too-expected part now. But when someone (or some people) took a saw and destroyed the 18-foot high Douglas fir in the center of Branchville, many of this borough’s residents felt wounded in a deep and painful way.
Most communities have ways to measure time or mark important events. Some shoot off fireworks on the Fourth of July. Others organize Halloween children’s costume parades or sponsor Thanksgiving “Turkey Trot” running races. Each Christmas in Branchville for the last half-century, a local resident has donated a large evergreen for the town square.
No one declared it an official town tradition. It just happened, one of those subtle, annual customs that glued the community together. Or as Arthur House, a retired carpenter, explained: “The tree has always been here - like Rockefeller Center.”
This year, Aldo Sayer volunteered the Douglas fir that had grown too large for his front yard, said Mayor Gerald Van Gorden. The borough’s two-man road crew - Larry Eldred and his sole assistant - removed the tree from Sayer’s yard, then trucked it to town square, set it up in a specially designed concrete block and strung colored lights on its branches.
After sunset on Friday, Dec. 9, around 200 of Branchville’s 950 residents - almost a quarter of the borough’s population - gathered around the tree to sing Christmas carols and turn on the tree lights. Afterwards, the local Methodist church invited everyone for hot chocolate and cookies.
After midnight, someone cut down Branchville’s tree.
“Probably some punk did it,” said Auggie Galvao, who was one of the last to see the tree up as he closed down his pizza shop around 11 p.m.
“I cried,” said phlebotomist Cheryl Howard, who passed the fallen tree that Saturday morning as she drove to her job at Saint Clare’s Hospital in Denville.
“A shame,” said Art House as he stared out the window of Johnny’s Barber Shop a week later.
“I’ve been looking at that tree for years,” added Johnny’s barber, Joe Accetta, who has clipped hair in Branchville for 43 Christmases - and 43 trees. “It seemed funny to see nothing there. Anybody who would cut down that tree would shoot Santa Claus.”
Accetta smiled as he remembered the only other time the tree was knocked down. It was December 1960. An auxiliary police officer had a few too many beers while playing cards at the local firehouse. On a dare from firefighters, he pulled down the tree.
“We called him ‘timber’ and ‘chop-chop’,” Accetta said. “It got so bad he had to move out of town.”
This year, Mayor Gerald W. Van Gorden admits his first reaction on that sullen Saturday morning was to cart away the fallen tree and not replace it. But then, Van Gordon’s phone started ringing. Within two days, 25 people volunteered to donate a replacement tree. “People really wanted to do something to get it back in the center of town,” the mayor said.
The weekend passed with no decision. Then on Monday, Branchville awoke to another surprise in the town square.
Someone - no one knows who yet - set up a new tree. The replacement was only seven feet tall and noticeably scrawny, with branches so thin that they hardly seemed strong enough to hold a sparrow, much less a string of Christmas lights.
A few residents nicknamed it the “Charlie Brown Christmas Tree” after the skeleton-like tree in the famous TV cartoon show.
But the new tree sent a symbolic message. Indeed, the tree had a typed note attached: “This tree is dedicated to all the good children. Never forget that there is a Santa Claus. A tree means no harm to you and your beliefs. It is simply here for the beauty and joy it brings. Happy Holiday, one and all.”
The note was signed: “Santa Claus.”
Heidi Brandariz looked out the window of her Good Sense Company gift shop on the town square and figured the tree “needed some help.” So she fetched a ladder and draped garland and Christmas ornaments on the new tree. Another shopkeeper found some lights.
Four days later, Branchville had another surprise.
A local tree farm donated a 15-foot-high Christmas tree. The borough’s road crew set the new tree in the concrete base, strung up lights, and put up the ornaments. But the road crew did not throw away the skinny Charlie Brown tree. Instead, the crew placed the tree on a nearby sidewalk, by the Post Office.
“Now we’re probably the only town with two trees,” said Linda Kinney, who has lived in the area for 50 of her 57 years and can’t remember not having a tree on the town square. “It brings the meaning of Christmas back.”
Branchville has no police department. But State Police detectives are on the case and are weighing whether the vandals were trying to make mischief or send an anti-Christmas message to Branchville. Already, detectives have studied video footage from the local bank and determined that vandals struck at 2:15 a.m.
“That’s when the lights went out on the tree,” said State Police Capt. Al Della Fave.
But if police ever catch the vandals, what then? Wayne Orr, who has run a local clothing outlet with his wife since 1975, has an idea. “Let’s just march them into the town square and give them a good spanking,” he said.
The lost tree - and the replacements - are one of those moments when Branchville could look collectively inside itself, maybe appreciate itself a little more.
Wayne Orr is glad for that.
“When you’ve been here all your life, you don’t think what the tree means until it’s gone,” he said. “But now we know. That tree was something for us. I’m glad they put it back up.”
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