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Oh Hello! the year was 1835
A dairy farmer, Colonel Thomas Meacham from western New York
produce ten blocks of cheese
these were not ordinary blocks of cheese
the block of cheese in question was four feet by two feet and weighed almost 1400 pounds
and had an inscription carved into it such as
the union it must be preserved
referring to Jackson's toast given at the Jefferson day dinner
earlier on in his presidency
at a fair in New York some of the cheese was consumed
and it was decided to send the 1400 Ib block of cheese
to Andrew Jackson at the white house, Jackson puts the cheese in the white house
hands it to people, offers it as a snack
as people come in, but towards the end of his
second term in office in 1837, he still had more cheese then he knew what to do with
so he threw a party, his last public reception
he took the cheese out onto the lawn, and it was gone within two hours
but evidence of the cheese remain
too the point that when Martin Van Buren was inaugurated
and he moved into the white house, he had to white wash the walls
replace the carpets, replace the curtains, because the stench
of cheese from Andrew Jackson keeping cheese
it white house for two years so permeated
the walls and the carpets of the white house that it had to be replaced