In 1802, a group of proud Baptist farmers in Cheshire, Connecticut, crafted a 1,235‑pound wheel of cheese and carted it all the way to the President’s House in Washington City. Elder John Leland accompanied it, celebrating Jefferson’s support for religious freedom. People lined the roads to cheer as the enormous wheel rolled through their town.
Thomas Jefferson accepted the gift — and served up chunks of it for years.
Eventually, the Mammoth Cheese aged into something else that might have been hard to be around. According to several accounts, Jefferson finally had it dumped into the Potomac River. I can’t help wondering whether it was as foul as the sludge we’re dealing with today.
Not everyone was charmed by the cheese in the first place. Congressman Manasseh Cutler was thoroughly unimpressed — not only by the spectacle of the Mammoth Cheese, but also by the macaroni and cheese Jefferson served during a White House meeting. (Cutler’s journals make his opinions very clear.)

After reading about the Mammoth Cheese, I found myself diving deeper into the life of Congressman Manasseh Cutler — and what a discovery that turned out to be. The more I read, the more I realized he wasn’t just a footnote in early American politics. He was a minister, a botanist, a doctor, a lawyer, a negotiator, and one of the key architects behind the settlement of the Northwest Territory and the founding of Ohio University.
The deeper I went, the more I realized Cutler belonged in Chasing Freedom. Maybe he was a visitor to Myers Tavern. His sharp observations, his complicated relationship with Jefferson, and his role in shaping the young nation all added perspective to the world I was building.
It’s funny how one odd detail — a giant cheese rolling into Washington City — can open the door to a whole new character, a new thread of history, and a richer understanding of the world I was researching.