When I think of cheese, especially this time of year, I think of it as a part of Thanksgiving and/or Christmas meals or New Year’s parties. Cheese has also helped to make otherwise unattractive, bland foods much more palatable for human consumption year around…such as cauliflower and cheese or broccoli and cheese…and I could go on. What can I say but cheese has saved the day many times for me. However, I must move on… as I digress. As many of us have experienced, cheese also comes in the form of gifts, and that is what my story today is about. But believe me….this is no ordinary gift nor ordinary cheese…and no ordinary occasion for the “Greatest Cheese in America.”
What is the greatest cheese in America? I’m really not sure, but of course I have my opinion and you have yours. However, if you will join me on a journey back to 1801 in the small farming community of Cheshire in the Beckshire Hills of western Massachusetts, I can sure enough give you an answer.
At the turn of the century, the Federalist Party dominated New England politics, and the Congregationalist church was legally established in Massachusetts. The Cheshire Baptists were thus among a religious minority and often subjected to legal discrimination and to some extent persecution in a Commonwealth dominated by a Congregationalist-Federalist establishment. Therefore, Thomas Jefferson’s long-standing commitment to religious freedom was not lost on the Cheshire Baptists during the 1800 presidential election when they voted almost unanimously for him over his Federalist opponent, John Adams.
When Baptist elder John Leland (1754-1841) of Cheshire received the news of Jefferson’s election, he stated, “This exertion of the American genius has brought forth the Man of the People, the defender of the rights of man and the rights of conscience. To fill the chair of state…Pardon me, my hearers, if I am over-warm. I lived in Virginia for fourteen years. The beneficent influence of my hero was too generally felt to leave me a stoic. What may we not expect, under the auspices of heaven, while Jefferson presides, with Madison in state by his side? Now the greatest orbit in America is occupied by the brightest orb.”
John Leland came up with a unique idea to celebrate Jefferson’s election and perhaps also to give a boost to Cheshire’s chief agriculture commodity. He announced it from the pulpit, and it was enthusiastically endorsed by his congregation. The monumental project of making a giant cheese would require a tremendous amount of planning, and no ordinary cheese press could possibly accommodate one of such magnitude. So, a large hoop was placed on a cider press, converting it to a makeshift cheese press more suitable for the task at hand. Since there was no recipe for such a large cheese, organizers had to calculate the quantities of ingredients and how to prevent contamination.
On the morning of July 20, 1801, the dedicated Baptist families of Cheshire showed up with pails and tubs of curds for a day of thanksgiving, hymn singing, and cheese pressing at the farm of Elisha Brown, Jr. They used milk from more than 900 cows, about every cow in town, with the exception of “Federalist” cows (cows owned by a Federalist farmer) in the production of the cheese. When completed, the cheese would measure more than four feet in diameter, thirteen feet in circumference, and seventeen inches in height. Once cured, it would weigh 1,235 pounds. According to eyewitnesses, its crust was painted red and embossed with Jefferson’s favorite motto: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” The cheese makers celebrated their creation as “the greatest cheese in America, for the greatest man in America.”
Next came figuring a way to transport the cheese to Mr. Jefferson. Due to its size, the cheese could not safely be transported on wheels, so a sleigh was hired to bring it to a barge on the Hudson River (North River) for the start of its trip to Washington, D.C. After floating down the Hudson River to New York City, the mammoth cheese was loaded onto the sloopAstraea and taken to Baltimore where it was loaded onto a horse-drawn sleigh for the trip to Washington. The 3 week, 500-mile trip became a special event from town to town as word spread about the unique gift. It was said that by the time it reached Baltimore, the ripening cheese, now nearly six months removed from the cows, was strong enough to walk the remaining distance to Washington. It was delivered on December 29.
Leland, or the “Mammoth Priest” as he came to be known, presented the cheese to Jefferson in a small ceremony in the President’s House on New Year’s Day. Accompanying the cheese was an address written by a committee of Cheshire citizens: “ [W]e console ourselves, that the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, who raises up men to achieve great events, has raised up a JEFFERSON for this critical day, to defend Republicanism and to baffle all the arts of Aristocracy. Sir, we have attempted to prove our love to our President, not in words alone, but in deeds and in truth. With this address, we send you a CHEESE….as a pepper-corn [token]of the esteem which we bear to our Chief Magistrate, and as a sacrifice to Republicanism. It is not the last stone in the Bastille, nor is it of any great consequence as an article of worth, but, as a free-will offering, we hope it will be favorably received.” The cheese remained at the White House for over two years, having been featured in a public dinner for an Independence Day celebration in 1803. Today a cast concrete cheese press stands in Cheshire and a plaque dedicated to Leland is affixed to it.
Another group of Baptists which figure into our story were from Danbury, Connecticut. On October 7, 1801, leaders of the Danbury Baptist Association penned a letter to President-elect Jefferson essentially expressing the same level of enthusiasm about his victory as did the Cheshire Baptists. However, the Danbury Baptists communicated it in a more detailed, substantive, and cautious way, citing history and biblical and constitutional principle. In this letter, they also expressed some uncertainty about the security of their religious freedom, even in light of the First Amendment: Their main concern was whether “religious privileges and the rights of conscience are rightly regarded as “inalienable rights” or merely as “favors granted” and subject to withdrawal by the civil state.
Two hundred twenty-two years ago, on January 1, 1802, the same day that Jefferson received John Leland as his guest upon acceptance of what he called the “monster” cheese, Jefferson prepared a response to that letter sent to him by the Baptists congratulating him on his election to the presidency. He emphatically reassuring them of his commitment to religious freedom. He also took this opportunity to state his unwillingness as President to issue religious proclamations designating days for thanksgiving, public fasting, and prayer. As governor of Virginia, he made such proclamations but with the understanding that matters pertaining to religion were outside the purview and jurisdiction of the federal government (but within that of the states) per the First Amendment. By way of illustration, Jefferson applied the now-famous metaphor “wall of separation between church and state” in this letter. It is critical to understand that the purpose and the principal importance of his “wall” was the demarcation of the legitimate jurisdictions of federal and state governments on religious matters – not a theoretical pronouncement on the relations between government and religion. To this day, this still gets lost in politics, policy, the courts, and unfortunately even in history classes and law schools.
In the latter half of the twentieth century, the concerns expressed by Baptists became a reality and the wall of separation metaphor has irresponsibly been given authoritative gloss on our First Amendment by our nation’s courts, including the highest court in the land beginning with Everson v. Board of Education in 1947. By isolating the phrase from its original meaning and historical context, the courts have essentially turned the First Amendment on its head, misinterpreting and misapplying it in such a way that it has become a vehicle for judicial mischief and social engineering in America. The First Amendment’s text imposes explicit restrictions on Congress only. The Congressional Records reveal that not one of the ninety Founding Fathers who framed the First Amendment ever mentioned the phrase “wall of separation between church and state”
It is important to note that the correspondence of the Cheshire and Danbury Baptists coincidentally commanded the president’s attention on the same day. The “monster” cheese symbolized the same issues and themes addressed by the Danbury Baptists. These were just two of many Baptist congregations and other groups of religious dissenters who had tolerated discrimination and persecution and hoped, prayed, and fought for the disestablishment of official state churches – Anglican (Episcopalian) and Congregationalist (Puritan). Besides the Baptists, other dissenters included mostly Methodists, Quakers, and Unitarians with lesser numbers of Lutherans and Catholics. However, it wasn’t until 1833 that Massachusetts officially disestablished its state church, the last of the original thirteen states to do so.
In closing, my brief account of this chapter of our nation’s history reminds us of how important but fragile our God-given freedoms are and how faithful some of our ancestors were in taking a strong stand for their preservation – even to the point of spending weeks preparing and delivering a monster cheese to the White House. While there is certainly an element of humor in Cheshire’s gift, there is more importantly an element of principle and law which needed strongly re-stated and defended and this only a decade after the Bill of Rights was ratified.
Here we are now, over two hundred thirty years after that ratification, and more than ever we would all do well in following their example in taking a strong interest not only in enjoying our freedoms but in staying vigilant in preserving them.
As Samuel Adams reminds us: “The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.”
By Jeff Olson
Cover image source: Roadside America
Jeff Olson, Author
Click here to read a previous article from Jeff.
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