His­to­ry is every­where. I love small towns with big sto­ries. Cheshire, MA, had a big sto­ry I wrote a pic­ture book about.  Check it out!

“Cheshire, [Mass­a­chu­setts] was incor­po­rat­ed in 1793, and its res­i­dents were strong­ly par­ti­san in the elec­tion bat­tles of the coun­try’s ear­ly days. The elec­tion cam­paign which put Thomas Jef­fer­son into the pres­i­den­cy was hard fought and Cheshire was the only Berk­shire town which favored Jef­fer­son. When their can­di­date won the elec­tion, the town searched for a way to show their sup­port and pay a trib­ute to their new pres­i­dent. Because Cheshire, like their name­sake, spe­cial­ized in dairy­ing and mak­ing cheese, they decid­ed to send a gift to the pres­i­dent of a Cheshire cheese, but one using curds from every farmer in town. The result­ing huge cheese was four feet in diam­e­ter, 18 inch­es thick and weighed 1,235 pounds (560 kg). It was moved on a sled drawn by six hors­es when it was shipped off to Wash­ing­ton, D.C. by water, where it drew a per­son­al let­ter of thanks from Pres­i­dent Jef­fer­son. One of the two mon­u­ments in Cheshire com­mem­o­rates the cheese; the oth­er memo­ri­al­izes the founders of the town. The Pio­neer Mon­u­ment is on Stafford Hill and is a field­stone repli­ca of Bene­dict Arnold’s Norse Mill in New­port, Rhode Island. The view from the mon­u­ment is arguably one of the most beau­ti­ful views in the Berkshires.”

From the Cheshire, MA website