The cheddar cheese history in United States

Cheddar came to North America in the seventeenth century arriving with the Pilgrims, spreading through New England and then westward across the continent. Export of cheese from New York to England increased from 328,566 kg in 1840 to 18.2 million kg in 1861. It was during this period that the name Cheddar came to be applied to Yankee or American cheese, because it offered a marketing advantage.

Genuine Cheddar cheese originated in the village of Cheddar, in Somerset, England, in the nineteenth century was in high demand in England by this time.

The first cheddar cheese factory in the United States, other than farmhouse cheesemaking, was established in New York in 1861.

Cheddar cheesemaking was a lucrative business and American cheesemakers - the vast majority of whom were of New England origin or descent – were well equipped to take advantage.

 In 1867 Robert McAdam popularized concept of cheddar cheesemaking in upper New York State, leading to directly to the evolution of the vast American Cheddar cheese industry. He introduced the English Cheddar system in a factory near Herkimer, New York. This is the Cheddar system as know-today. It produces the closer bodied cheese demanded by the export trade.
The cheddar cheese history in United States

History of cheesemaking in United States

Cheese and butter factories were born in the United States a country with no cheese-making tradition, just 70 years after revolution.

When the Pilgrims voyaged to America in 1620, they made sure that the Mayflower was stocked with cheese. It came together with its cargo of goats.

Cheese making in North America and specifically in the United States, remained a farmhouse process throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

In 1841, Anne Pickett established Wisconsin’s first cheese factory. In 1851 an entrepreneur Jesse William had built the New York’s first cheese factory near Rome, Oneida County, New York and introduced production in a grand scale. He revolutionized commercial cheese making. The ‘factory’ was simply his farm. He had a reputation for making exceptional cheese, so his neighbors would send him their milk so that he could make cheese for them.

Jesse William

Williams regulated the timing as well as the temperature for converting milk to curds, regardless of volume. By combining the milk and producing large cheeses, he could achieve a uniform taste and texture.

During the early part of the year 1860, Samuel Perry, of New York City, a native of Herkimer, and one of the earliest operators in the cheese trade, endeavored to control the market, purchasing the great bulk of cheese manufactured in the country. In 1867, Robert McAdam introduced the English Cheddar system in a factory near Herkimer, New York. This introduction made Herkimer County famous for its cheese.

For many years during this period, the largest cheese market in world as at Little Falls, New York. By 1875 there were more than 500 cheese factories in New York State alone.

The industry moved westward, centering on the rich farmlands of Wisconsin, where the American cheese industry really took off.

In 1878, a German immigrant named Julius Wettstein started a cheese factory in Monroe, New York, where he produced a fine line of German, French and Swiss types that were traded over the entire length of the Erie Canal.
History of cheesemaking in United States

Milk dairy in United States

Milk drinking was introduced in the 17th century in United States during early European colonization efforts. There was no indigenous dairy tradition, as Native American societies kept no large domesticated mammals.

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado transported cattle with him when he explored the American Southwest in 1540 and reportedly turned some loose in the Mississippi River Valley.

Spaniards brought cattle to Veracruz (Mexico) in 1525; English cattle reached Jamestown in 1611.

When the Massachusetts Bay Colony established a settlement around what would become Boston in 1630, 30 cattle accompanied with first colonist. Other stock was sent subsequently. Increased availability meant expanded usage. Milk was drunk, churned into butter and converted into cheese.

By 1650, dairy farming was so successful that the Massachusetts Bay Colony exported butter and cheese.

From colonial times the dairy remained women’s work, including butter churning and cheese pressing, well into the nineteenth century long after commercial sales flourished in the public markets of seaports and river towns.

Dairy products sold by farmers in the early period were limited mainly to whole milk, farm made butter, and farm-made cheese. Prior to 1859, these products were produced mainly on farms.

Milk was probably not a major beverage until the late nineteenth century, when urban demand and technological innovations made a commercial milk supply possible.

Technical advances in milk processing and distribution brought hand-separators, milking machines, cooling equipment, and storage tanks to commercial dairy farms, while refrigerated tank trucks and glass-lined railcars by the 1930s carried milk to processing plants and profitable metropolitan markets.

Factory cheese production was in an experimental stage shortly before 1850, and made considerable progress during the next two decades. Although some butter as made in early cheese plants, the first commercial creamery was not established until 1861.
Milk dairy in United States