468 WiSCOIfSIJSr STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
Cheshire, nestling among the middle hills of Massachusetts,” says 
Mr. Burrett (to whose history of the affair I am indebted), “a coun¬ 
ter voice of great power was lifted up from its pulpit against the 
flood of obloquy and denunciation that rolled and roared against 
Jefferson and Democracy. This was Elder John Leland, one of 
the most extraordinary preachers produced by those stirring times, 
and he preached such stirring Jeffersonian Democracy to the peo¬ 
ple of Cheshire, that for generations they never voted anything but 
a “straight Democratic ticket.” 
Democracy ])revailed and Jefferson was elected President, and 
no man had done more to bring about this result than Elder John 
Leland, of the little hill town of Cheshire, Massachusetts. Besides 
influencing thousands of outsiders in the same direction, he had 
brought up his whole congregation and parish to vote for the father 
of American Democracy. Democracy in those days, I fancy, was 
different from the Reform Democracy of to-day, but be it as it may. 
He now resolved to set the seal of Cheshire to the election in 
a way to make the nation know there was such a town in the re¬ 
public of Israel. 
He had only to propose the method to command the unanimous 
approbation and indorsement of his people, and he did propose it 
to a full congregation on the Sabbath. With a few earnest words 
he invited every man and woman who owned a cow to bring every 
quart of milk given on a certain day, or all the curd it would make, 
to a great cider mill belonging to their townsman, Capt. John 
Brown, who was the first man to detect and denounce the treachery 
of Benedict Arnold in the Revolution. No Federal cow was al¬ 
lowed to contribute a drop of milk to the offering lest it should 
leaven the whole lump with a distasteful savor. It was the most 
glorious day the sun ever shone upon, before or since, in Cheshire. 
Its brightest beams seemed to bless the day’s work. With 
their best Sunday clothes under their white tow frocks came the 
men and boys of the town, down from the hills, up from the valleys, 
with their contributions to the great offering, in pails and tubs. 
Mothers, wives and all the rosy maidens of these rural homes came 
in their white aprons and best calico’ dresses to the sound of the 
church bell, and that called young and old, rich and poor, to the 
great co-operative fabrication. In farm wagons, in Sunday wagons, 
in carts and all kinds of four wheeled and two wheeled vehicles 
