Back in the 1920’s Alfio Bonaccorsi and Leonarda Ferlito Bonaccorsi came from Giarre, Sicily, and settled in Oswego County, New York. They lost the second “c” in Bonaccorsi while passing through Ellis Island. On their farm, they raised vegetables and strawberries and lots of kids. Winters were tough financially and in the early days, Alfio used to travel to New York City in the winters to earn extra money.
Their son Sam took over the farm, growing primarily lettuce and onions on the mucklands but also strawberries and other vegetables on the highland. He and his wife Ann sold their produce at the weekly farm markets on Saturdays in Fulton and Tuesday nights in Oswego, and had a produce stand across from their home on the Hall Road.
In 2008 we bought our fifteen acre Croton Road farm. There is some saying about you can take the boy off the farm but you can’t take the farm out of the boy. After years of Sam craning his neck any time we drove past a newly plowed field, we moved out to Hunterdon County with thoughts of bringing a new generation of Bonacorsi’s into farming. The pic below was taken in the first days of our arrival, with Croton Road in the farm background, on the other side of the soy field that is now raspberries, blackberries, grapes, and apples.
In 2015 we purchased an additional 42-acre farm, just 3.5 miles away, in order to allow plenty of room to properly rotate crops and offer many new delicious varieties. Everything we sell is grown right here in Franklin Township, for freshness and quality.