Beginning of the Cheese Factory System in America.
About the year 1853, a gentleman residing near Rome, Oneida county, N. Y., Jesse Williams by name, conceived the idea of manufacturing his neighbors’ milk in common with his own. This is the first known instance of manufacture in this country by associated dairies, although the method was previously in vogue in Switzerland. I quote from an old report: “It required a long time to create the demand which now exists in England for American cheese, and to Herkimer county, New York, belongs the credit of creating it and securing the trade. It was mainly effected by bringing a high degree of skill to bear upon the manufacture generally, thus producing not only a good article, but uniformly good, or as near uniform as is possible when made in different families. Cheese had been sent abroad in small amounts for many years, but when once by good quality and uniformity it had secured a firm foothold, the amount exported increased with astonishing rapidity. By gradual growth it had come to nine million pounds in 1859, in 1860 it amounted to twenty-three millions, in 1861 to forty millions, and the demand and supply have steadily increased ever since. It is a noteworthy fact that systematic attempts to improve the manufacture of cheese began to be made both in Somersetshire, England, and in Herkimer county, New York, about the same time; and also, that with no knowledge on the part of either of the progress made by the other, after lengthened experiments, both should have adopted substantially the same method; for it is a fact that the Cheddar and Herkimer methods so closely resemble each other that the only differences of any consequence are such as necessarily grow out of the difference of climate. Their process differs from most methods mainly in two particulars; first, in employing milk which has attained a proximate degree of acidity, although never enough to be sensible to the taste, instead of such as is quite new; and, second, in the separation of the whey from the curd by causing its contraction and precipitation, instead of depending mainly on mechanical means. The improvements thus introduced within a comparatively recent period have resulted in several important advantages: First, a material reduction of labor; second, the production of a larger amount and a better quality of cheese from a given quantity of milk; and, lastly, the cheese made by this method requires less time for the ripening process, and thus is sooner ready for the market.