In the summer of 1801, Rev. John Leland encouraged the women of his Baptist congregation in Cheshire, Mass., to manufacture a “mammoth cheese” in honor of Pres. Thomas Jefferson. Purportedly the product of the milk of 900 Cheshire cows, the cheese was made in a 6-foot-diameter cider press and weighed 1,230 pounds. Leland presented the “ebullition of the spirit of republicanism” to Jefferson in a ceremony at the president’s house on New Year’s Day 1802. The president and his guests nibbled at the cheese for years while political partisans celebrated and ridiculed it.