By Rafe Calder
In 1866 a group of cheesemakers in southwestern Ontario decided that the best advertisement for their cheese was a very large cheese. By the museum’s own account, it worked. The wheel they made was moved by wagon and train, shown abroad, and is still the subject of a museum exhibit in Ingersoll more than a century and a half later.
How cheese came to Oxford County
The Virtual Museum of Canada’s Community Stories pages, which are written by the Ingersoll Cheese and Agricultural Museum, say settlers arrived in Oxford County in the early 1800s and that many were dairy farmers. With no refrigeration, surplus milk was made into butter or cheese, and at home that work was done by women. It says Lydia Ranney came from Vermont in 1834 and, once her family’s dairy prospered, began to teach cheese making. Her daughter Julia was proficient too, and Julia’s suitor, James Harris, had dairy experience.
The town of Ingersoll’s page on the museum puts the Ranneys on a farm near Salford in the 1850s, with a large herd and hired young men and women who learned cheese making from Lydia.
Factories and a single date that differs
The Community Stories pages say James Harris built his own factory in Ingersoll in 1865, the first in the town. These do not contradict each other: one is the first cooperative factory in the country by the museum’s account, and the other is the first in Ingersoll. We have found no outside source for either claim.
Why a big cheese
By 1866, Community Stories says, there were many factories around the town and a way was needed to advertise the cheese in other markets. The solution was a Mammoth Cheese that could tour. The town’s page adds that in the spring of 1866 the Ranneys, Harris and George Galloway saw a chance to sell cheese in Great Britain and combined their efforts to make a wheel.
How it was made
Community Stories says the milk of about 2,500 cows on 250 farms was processed in separate factories, then brought to a special structure built for the purpose. There it was combined in a giant steel hoop, pressed for eight days and cured for seven.
Side by side
| Point | Town of Ingersoll museum page | Community Stories (museum) |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | “Over 7,000 pounds” | 7,300 lbs |
| Size | Not stated | 6 ft 10 in across, 21 ft round, 3 ft high |
| Route | Toured the British countryside before being bought and eaten | By wagon to the train station, to Saratoga for the New York State Fair, then England and France |
| Who | The Ranneys, Harris and Galloway | Cheese from factories around Ingersoll |
Both pages come from the same museum, so this is one institution describing the same cheese in two places. We do not resolve the weight, and we leave out the phrase “over” from our own claims. Our reading: a wheel 21 feet around would be about 6.7 feet across, so the two measurements look consistent with each other.
The museum
The town’s page says the Ingersoll Cheese and Agricultural Museum opened on 27 August 1977 as a re-creation of a nineteenth-century cheese factory in Centennial Park. A former barn was taken apart and re-built there in the shape of a typical Oxford County factory. The building is a replica, the page says, but the contents come from working factories. It stands just down the road from the site of Harris’s original factory. The original is not described as surviving, and we do not say what became of it.
Dates in order
- 1834 (Community Stories): Lydia Ranney arrives from Vermont.
- 1850s (town page): the Ranney farm near Salford.
- 1865 (Community Stories): Harris builds the first factory in Ingersoll.
- 1866 (both): the Mammoth Cheese is made and shown.
- 1977 (town page): the museum opens.
What kind of sources these are
A municipal web page about the town’s own museum, and an online exhibit written by the museum itself. Both are local and promotional in the way most heritage sites are, and both come from the same institution. We read no newspaper from 1866, no trade body and no encyclopedia entry on Canadian cheese.
Questions a buyer would ask
Does “Ingersoll cheese” mean anything today? We found nothing that says so. The name on the boxes in 1866 was a place label for exports, and the sources do not describe a protected name.
Is this a gifting story? Our reading: it suits the season, since cheese boards are a winter table staple, but neither source says anything about modern products.
What we left out
Prices, tasting notes, the names of today’s cheesemakers, the poet’s biography, and any claim about what is sold at the museum. We also left out a long list of local factory names whose founding dates the exhibit marks with question marks.
Quick answers
How big was the Ingersoll Mammoth Cheese? According to the museum’s Community Stories exhibit, it weighed 7,300 lbs and stood 3 feet high. The town’s museum page says it weighed over 7,000 pounds.
When was it made? Both museum pages date it to 1866.
How much milk went into it? Community Stories says the milk of about 2,500 cows from 250 farms, pressed for eight days and cured for seven.
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Roam first. Shop later.