When Lloyd Hodgkins decided to sell his beloved collection of Farmall Letter Series tractors, he had a few conditions: they had to go as a complete set and they had to be headed for a good home.
“If they had been going to be cannibalized for parts or used for work, I wouldn’t have sold them,” Hodgkins said. “I’m happy knowing they’re going to be on display with somebody who’s going to enjoy them.”
Until his collection left Jefferson on a flatbed truck Dec. 19, Hodgkins had spent the better part of 15 years finding a complete set of Letter Series Tractors.
From the very end of the 1930s, through the 1940s, and into the early 1950s, the Farmall company built and sold an iconic series of bright red tractors – from largest to smallest they are the Cub, the A, the B, the C, the H and the M.
Like many of his generation, Hodgkins harbors childhood memories of his father’s Farmall tractor and working his parents’ land.
Hodgkins was born 77 years ago, less than a mile from his current home on Hodgkins Hill Road in Jefferson. In 1948, his father bought a brand new Farmall H model.
When his father died in 1992, the tractor passed to Hodgkins’ brother. “I was glad to see him have it,” Hodgkins said. “I was working too much and wouldn’t have been able to do anything with it.”
But when he saw his brother’s tractor a few years later, fully restored and gleaming red, he had to have his own. He soon found and bought two H models, then set out to complete the set. For about 10 years, he followed every lead he could find. Eventually, he had all six models, completely original, fully restored and operational.
“They became an icon in town,” Hodgkins said. A few times each year on holidays and other special occasions, the tractors would line the road in precise formation.
Over the years, dozens of people have stopped to talk to Hodgkins about his tractors, and he said he’s made time for every one of them.
“They bring back childhood memories for so many people,” Hodgkins said. “A lot of them learned to drive on a Farmall.”
Farmall tractors are a symbol of rural life in America in the 1940s that resonates with many people who grew up during that time, but most of them have never seen a complete set all together, Hodgkins said. “We put a smile on a lot of people’s faces.”
One older gentleman stopped to admire the tractors a few years ago, Hodgkins said. “He was up in years and had a bad hip,” he said, “but he looked at the H and told me he could hop up there and start it blindfolded.”
Hodgkins told him to give it try. “He closed his eyes and started it up,” Hodgkins said. “He rode around on it and made him so happy – just like you gave him a $1000 bill.”
In the late afternoon on Dec. 22, Hodgkins and his wife Peggy Hodgkins sat in their living room and discussed the sale of their tractors.
“Lots of older people would stop and tell stories, whenever we had the tractors out,” Peggy Hodgkins said. “They’d stop and say, ‘Remember when?'”
Now, the Hodgkinses have another story about their tractors. “Everything had to go exactly right for those tractors to make it out of here,” Lloyd Hodgkins said.
When the tractors became more work than Hodgkins was able to put in and he had “had them long enough,” they decided to sell them, but only as a set and only to the right buyer. They advertised locally, but Peggy Hodgkins had a hunch that they’d sell to someone from Ohio, so they advertised in the Midwest as well.
The first week in December, Robert Wenrich, 79, of Ravenna, Ohio, called the Hodgkinses to ask about the Farmalls.
“He called on a Monday and wanted to know about hotels in the area,” Peggy Hodgkins said. He planned to fly into Rockland the next day and fly home on Wednesday. He was scheduled to arrive around 4 p.m., so it would be dark by the time they got back to Jefferson. “So I thought, ‘Where’s all this going to fit in?'” Peggy Hodgkins said.
To give them more time with the tractors, the Hodgkinses invited Wenrich to stay at their home. “You can imagine, a 79-year-old man was a little hesitant to agree to stay with people he didn’t know,” she said, “but he agreed and we arranged to pick him up in Rockland.”
Wenrich and Lloyd Hodgkins looked at the tractors by flashlight that night, and the next morning Wenrich said he wanted them. He flew home that day, and the Hodgkinses handled shipping the tractors to Ohio.
They used LLP Trucking Company based in Jefferson, which “treated us like royalty,” Peggy Hodgkins said. “It’s just nice to do local business with local people.”
On Dec. 14, the flatbed pulled up in front of their house and the Hodgkinses – directed by Jefferson resident Don Pierce – loaded the tractors in about three and a half hours. “They fit on the truck with two inches to spare,” Lloyd Hodgkins said.
When the tractors left the Hodgkinses’ home, they spent several days at Peaslee’s Quick Stop in Jefferson, where a few more people had a chance to say their goodbyes to the Jefferson icons.
As the Hodgkinses’ Farmalls had for years, their departure gave the community one last reason to gather.
“We all just had fun,” Lloyd Hodgkins said. “Everybody worked well together.”
Peggy Hodgkins said the whole experience exemplified the best parts of living in a community. “You don’t have to go outside the box to find somebody to do what you need,” she said. “It’s all right here.”
The Farmalls left Jefferson on Dec. 19 and arrived in Ohio the next day. Wenrich has told the Hodgkinses that they arrived safe and sound and are settling in to their new home.
“It was almost like a funeral, when they were leaving,” Lloyd Hodgkins said, “but [Wenrich’s family] said he’s just like a proud father with seven new children.”
