Sitting in my study the morning of Jan. 1 — New Year’s Day — I reflected on the state of affairs in the United States, keenly aware the day marked the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s famous and controversial historic letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in which he used the term “a wall of separation between church and state” that is still frequently discussed in current day news media and in courts.
There was a bustle of activity at the President’s House (now known as the White House) on the morning of Jan. 1, 1802. Thomas Jefferson, America’s third president, had held office for almost 10 months. As was the custom of the day, Jefferson had invited the members of Congress, consisting of 32 senators and 101 representatives, to what is now 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for a reception.
As the congressmen arrived they were directed to what is now known as the East Room of the White House to see the “Mammoth Cheese.” The 1,200-pound plus, three-foot high and six-foot in diameter cheese had been delivered earlier that morning to President Jefferson by Elder John Leland, pastor of the Cheshire Baptist Church in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, along with the son of a leading member of his pastorate, Darius Brown. To Leland and many of his contemporaries, the cheese was a symbol of individual political participation and economic production in society of the so-called ordinary citizen. But being the devout preacher that he was, Leland put an additional spin of theological nature on the incident of the cheese. He used it to champion the cause the freedom of conscience and religious liberty.
Mammoth cheese
Leland was extremely happy about Jefferson’s becoming the new president in 1801 because of Jefferson’s views on religious liberty and the separation of church and state being closely akin to his own. So, in the summer of 1801, Leland suggested to his flock the manufacturing of the mammoth cheese as a way to honor Jefferson. To Leland and apparently to Jefferson and many of the common folks of that day, it did express the significance of the individual in God’s sight.
In early summer of 1801, the Baptists of the Cheshire area, who had dressed up in their Sunday best and assembled for hymns and prayers, brought the curds from one milking of their respective 900 cows, which were poured into a large cider press to begin the process of making the more than one-half ton cheese.
The cheese left Cheshire near the first of December 1801 on a sled with many wagons full of cheesemakers in escort to Hudson, New York, to the west on the Hudson River. Here it was loaded on a manually operated and propelled boat and taken to New York City where it was transferred onto an ocean- going sailboat and transported down the New Jersey and Virginia coasts and up the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore. It was then loaded on a wagon pulled by four stately horses and hauled across east Maryland to Washington D.C., and as pre-arranged, delivered to Jefferson on New Year’s Day. Early on the morning of Jan. 1, 1802, after a journey of almost a month, the cheese came to rest in the East Room of the President’s House.
As can readily be imagined, the mammoth cheese, which some dubbed “the monster cheese,” was an object of much curiosity. It frequently attracted large crowds along its route. And Leland would seize the opportunity to take out his Bible and preach.
Many of Jefferson and Leland’s detractors tried to use the cheese as a vehicle to humiliate and poke fun at Jefferson. However, history records, even if primarily forgotten, that the cheese became a symbol of wide citizen participation in the affairs of life of the times. Apparently, Jefferson, who paid $200 toward the transportation costs of the cheese, fed his guests on the cheese for two years with its left-overs being deposited in the Potomac River.
We also know that Leland’s neighbors and fellow believers in the Danbury Baptist Association consisting of 26 Baptist churches in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York had written President Jefferson on Oct. 17, 1801, congratulating him on becoming president and expressing their appreciation for his position on the matter of freedom of religion. We also know that Jefferson gave serious thought to his response to the referenced letter. He consulted in writing with some of his closest advisors. And on New Year’s Day 1802, apparently after the crowd had left, Jefferson penned his final draft in which he used the term, “… a wall of separation between church and state.”
Elder John Leland, his flock, and the Baptists of the Danbury Association, had initiated the situation from which the president expressed a concept of the church and state relationship that enabled churches and religion to grow and minister in a context of freedom, which had its major advent in the late 1700s and early 1800s. It continues today to have church leaders, judges, attorneys, scholars, and citizens at large struggling to define its relevance in this age.
First Amendment
While Leland should justly be remembered for the mammoth cheese and his theological views as expressed in Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, we should remember that probably with the exception of some of the delegates to the 1787 Constitution Convention, no person had greater influence on the realization of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution than John Leland. From 1776 to 1791, Leland’s ministry was concentrated in Virginia, primarily in Orange and Culpepper Counties. In this capacity he had much specific influence on James Madison, the father of the Constitution and the American Bill of Rights.
While Leland was a foremost champion of religious freedom, he was the champion in preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. With primitive means of transportation and communications, reliable records reflect that Leland baptized close to 2,000 people and preached more than 10,000 sermons during his long ministry, primarily in Virginia and Massachusetts.
Most historians have treated this episode as an endeavor of an eccentric Baptist preacher. Unfortunately, the great message of the matter has pretty much been forgotten and the man who fathered the idea and pushed for its realization has been almost forgotten, even by Baptists.
Fellow Baptists, let us revive our memories of our great spiritual heroes like John Leland who have greatly enriched our spiritual heritage and pioneered so much of the religious freedom we all enjoy so readily today. This is a concept of church and state still making shock waves around the world.
Chriss H. Doss, an attorney, is director of the center for the study of law and the church at Samford University in Birmingham.
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