What town is linked to the 1872 development of modern commercial American cream cheese?

What town is linked to the 1872 development of modern commercial American cream cheese? Chester, New York.

William A. Lawrence, a dairyman in Chester, New York, is widely associated with the development of modern American cream cheese in 1872. While attempting to make a soft Neufchâtel-style cheese, he added cream and produced a richer, heavier, unripened cheese. That product became the basis of the cream cheese sold in American markets.

The date refers to development rather than the fully mature national brand industry. Lawrence began manufacturing a Neufchâtel-style cheese in 1872, and by adding cream he created the product that came to be called cream cheese. Other dairymen developed similar fresh cheeses independently, so the history is not simply a single-inventor story.

Chester is sometimes confused with Philadelphia because Philadelphia became strongly associated with cream-cheese branding. The famous Philadelphia name refers to a later marketing and distribution history; the town linked to Lawrence’s original development was Chester, in Orange County, New York.