The CWI Cookbook

 1 and 1/2 pints cream
1/2 pint milk
Rennet
Additional cream & sugar for serving

Warm three half pints of cream with one half pint of milk, or according to the same proportion, and put a little rennet to it; keep it covered in a warm place till it is curdled; have a proper mould with holes, either of China or any other; put the curds into it to drain, about an hour, or less; serve with a good plain cream, and pounded sugar over it.

From The Cook’s Own Book by “A Boston Housekeeper” (Mrs. N. K. M. Lee) Boston 1832

Comment: This is probably less “cream cheese” as we think of it today than a sort of quick-made cottage cheese. Rennet may look like an anachronism for a recipe from 1832, but it did not in those days come from the supermarket in a little box in tablet form. It came from the fourth stomach of a calf, which was cleaned, cut up into squares of about an inch, and preserved for use in cheesemaking or any other occasion in which milk-curdling was called for.