The local story behind the country’s proudest cheese is hard to slice.

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Another famous local, pioneer Samuel Morse, told a different tale. In an 1948 letter, Morse writes, “None of the Jacks family had anything to do with [the cheese] as far as I know.”

According to Morse, in the early 1890s Domingo Pedrazzi, a Swiss-Italian dairyman in Carmel Valley, originated jack cheese. “He developed a type of cheese that required the application of pressure,” Morse wrote. “He developed a fine cheese, and it became known as Pedrazzi’s jack cheese. You will note that the name is ‘jack,’ not ‘Jacks.’

Morse wrote that Ed Hatton continued to make the cheese using milk from the Hatton Dairy for years. It was later sold under the name of Del Monte Cheese.