Cheshire Mammoth Cheese

The original settlers came from Rhode Island and created New Providence Plantation on Providence Hill, later renamed to Stafford Hill in honor of Col. Joab Stafford who originally surveyed the area in 1767 and later led local revolutionary soldiers against the British in the Battle of Bennington.

[2] Given the political landscape of the time, there was a fear that the more Republican Jefferson, considered an "infidel of the French Revolutionary school," would harm the religious interests of the citizenry, and that "the altars of New England would be demolished, and all their religious institutions would be swept away by an inrushing and irresistible flood of French infidelity.

A beleaguered minority in Congregationalist New England, the Baptists were perhaps the strongest advocates in the early republic of the separation of church and state.

As stated in a letter for Reverend John Leland to President Thomas Jefferson, the Cheese was made "without the assistance of a single slave."

While the cheese did serve to praise Jefferson, the town also made a political statement in its letter to Jefferson, noting that "the cheese was procured by the personal labor of freeborn farmers with the voluntary and cheerful aid of their wives and daughters, without the assistance of a single slave.

[3] Jefferson, who opposed the gift giving custom on principle, gave a $200 donation (over 50% of the actual market price)[9] to Leland's congregation as a gesture of gratitude.

[10] 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,[11] eventually being replaced by the "Mammoth Loaf," a large loaf of bread made by the United States Navy out of a barrel full of flour.