Modern cream cheese, including the fan-favorite Philadelphia Cream Cheese, has a deep history in Chester County agriculture, specifically historic farmer Pennock Edwards Sharpless, writes Emma Leuschner for Pennsylvania Heritage.
While Philadelphia Cream Cheese gets its name from Pennsylvania, the company was historically based in New York. The brand name was inspired by southeastern Pennsylvania’s robust dairy industry, led by Sharpless in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Pennock E. Sharpless was born in 1852 to a Chester County dairy farming family. He learned the butter-making process early on to support his family, later returning to the dairy industry as an adult.
Sharpless began professional dairymaking in 1873, manufacturing high-quality butter to customers throughout the Philadelphia region. He established the state’s first commercial creamery in Toughkenamon in 1876, and continued his successful dairy business manufacturing throughout Chester and Delaware Counties.
The flourishing company incorporated in 1902 as P.E. Sharpless Co., and began cream cheese production in 1909.
Such wild success in the industry landed Sharpless in a patent war with Philadelphia Cream Cheese. The New York company claimed that Sharpless’ marketing and packaging was such that customers mistook the product for theirs. Sharpless initially lost the lawsuit, but later won in an appeal.
Kraft purchased the entire stock of P.E. Sharpless Co. in 1924, when Sharpless was 72. While the Sharpless brand has since been lost through Kraft mergers—one of which was with Philadelphia Cream Cheese—the forever favorite spread will always have part of its history rooted in Chester County.
Read more about Pennock Edwards Sharpless and the history of Pennsylvania cream cheese in Pennsylvania Heritage.
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