From his trade perhaps he had come to be
called Puffer Kimball. From a front seat in the meetinghouse he had
ventured upon the pulpit stairs, and finally he had reached the
position of standing on an upper stair, resting his arms upon the desk,
and with his hand to his ear listening to the services from beginning
to end. In the east part of the town was a farmer named James
Gilchrist, a Scotch Irishman, weighing not less than two hundred and
fifty pounds, and the father of four grown sons who where his equals
in weight, and all of them of great strength. Gilchrist abandoned the
Sunday meetings and when Mr. Damon asked him for his reason he said he
wouldn't have his religion strained through old Puffer Kimball.
This same Gilchrist had had a controversy ending in a slander suit with
Mr. Damon's predecessor, the Rev. Timothy Flint. Mr. Flint was a man
of recognized ability, a good preacher, but erratic in his ways. For
some purpose not well understood, he built a furnace in the cellar of
his house. His friends maintained that he was engaged in scientific
experiments, and such was his purpose, no doubt, but his enemies and
the more ignorant of the community assumed that his plan was to coin
money. One day, in a store kept by Mr. Cunningham (the grandfather or
great-grandfather of Gen. James Cunningham,) Gilchrist exhibited a coin
and said: "Here is a dollar that Tim Flint made.
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