great moments in history

In the 1730s, a recent Harvard graduate named David Parsons moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, and took up the pulpit at the town's First Congregational Church. The historian Leonard L. Richards reports that Parsons "drove a hard bargain, getting the town to grant him two lots of land, ₤175 toward building a parsonage, ₤100 salary soon to be raised to ₤160, and sixty wagon loads of wood per year."

Parsons stayed on for forty-five years, but some in his congregation eventually began to resent him. "The wood allowance, especially, struck many as excessive. For most farmers, it meant a lot of additional work." But Parsons steadily negotiated for an ever-greater quantity of wood: "His wood allowance was increased to 80 loads in 1744, to 90 loads in 1749, to 100 in 1751, and 120 in 1763."

Richards quotes an observation from a local: "I never found in any records, a minister who consumed as much wood as Mr. Parsons."

(Insert all your own jokes anywhere you want, in here.)

Anyway, and then came the American Revolution. David Parsons remained in the pulpit, but quickly turned out to be the town's most ardent Tory, preaching to a congregation that included the most prominent local opponents of the king. Once, called upon to read a proclamation calling on God to protect the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Parsons editorialized and called out, "But I say, God save the king." Scandalously, someone in the congregation shouted back that he was a "rogue." (And there were children present, ladies and gentlemen.)

And so erupted a great and mighty struggle between the forces of monarchical tyranny and republican liberty, yadda yadda, and the congregation found the perfect weapon to take to the battle: They "shorted him on his wood supply."

SNAP!

(Long pause.)

When his monarch-loving son took over the pulpit in 1781, the congregation hit the kid where he lived: 25 annual wagon loads of wood.

Armed revolution, people. That shit ain't pretty.