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22 Dairy on the Prairie HENRY D. SHERMAN
John Stewart won the International The first creamery in Jones County, the H. D. Sher- Building plans for the
first prize for his creamery butter man and Company Diamond Creamery, opened for years 1888 and 1894 of
at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in business in 1876 in Monticello, four years after John the Diamond Creamery
Philadelphia. He and other northeast Stewart opened the first Iowa creamery. Henry D. Co., Monticello, Iowa.81
Iowa dairymen subsequently won Sherman is perhaps the best known early dairyman
numerous other prizes for their high in Jones County. Sherman was initially a schoolteach- man's company differed from other local creameries
quality butter:75 er, born in Indiana, who arrived in Jones County in in another respect. The Diamond Creamery, starting
1859. in the late 1870s, tried to pay patrons based on the
"THE N. Y. TRIBUNE EXCLAIMED, WHY, quality of their milk. At that time, quality (butterfat)
Sherman began his commercial dairy venture in measures were far from precise. Sherman had seri-
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN, THAT IOWA SHOULD 1863 as a butter buyer, shipping the locally-homemade ous difficulties convincing his patrons that milk grad-
TAKE THE FIRST PREMIUM AT THE WORLD'S FAIR? product to Chicago. The butter tubs were marked with ing was fair.82 Not until the Babcock centrifugal test,
THAT BUTTER WHICH HAS BEEN SO LONG REPORT- a "diamond" symbol. Simpson, Mclntyre and Com- introduced in 1890, was a truly reliable and quick
pany of Boston sampled some of the Diamond butter method of milk fat testing found.
ED AS WESTERN GREASE, SHOULD TAKE THE PRE- in Chicago and visited Monticello to meet with Sher-
man. Soon, the company began purchasing most of Most of the old cheese factories in Jones County
MIUM AS THE BEST BUTTER OF THE WORLD HOW his product and would continue to do so for many were no longer producing cheese by 1880. Butter fac-
CAN IT BE POSSIBLE? THERE MUST BE FRAUD. THE years.77 tories increased in number, although by that date har-
COMMITTEE HAVE BEEN BRIBED. W H Y , PEOPLE bingers of big-business consolidation were appearing.
OF N E W YORK, WAKE UP! T O WHOM IS AWARD- In 1876, the Diamond Creamery opened in Monti- The largest creamery organization in the county, the
cello. In its first year of operation, the creamery pro- Diamond Creamery, had begun to acquire numerous
ED THE RED RIBBON THIS TIME? JOHN STEWART, cessed "over one million pounds of milk," with a smaller operators. Generally, the Diamond Creamery
DELAWARE COUNTY, IOWA—WESTERN capacity of 10,000 pounds of milk per day, using a 60- purchased these operations and converted them to
STATES—1879"76 gallon box churn. Only one year after opening the skim stations. Occasionally, the company purchased
Diamond Creamery in Monticello, Sherman broke a small creamery, and immediately shut down the op-
ground on another creamery, this one in Wayne eration, as was the case with the Hall Creamery in
Township.78 Langworthy.83 Thus, dairy farmers often had just a
single place to market their milk unless they wished
In 1879, Henry Sherman and John Stewart pulled
off an astounding feat: between the two men, Iowa
made a clean sweep of all the top creamery butter priz-
es at the Second International Dairy Fair in New
York.79 Sherman was awarded the first place prize in
two of the four nationwide creamery butter catego-
ries (butter made in June and made in September).
Stewart won the other two categories (October and
November): Iowa butter was the hallmark of quality.
At least between 1878 and 1880, Sherman manu-
factured skim cheese from his butter by-products.80
This practice was not common among local butter
makers. Besides his manufacture of skim cheese, Sher-
