The meeting-house not only was employed for the worship of God and for town meetings, but it was a storehouse as well. Until after the Revolutionary War it was universally used as a powder magazine; and indeed, as no fire in stove or fireplace was ever allowed within, it was a safe enough place for the explosive material. In Hanover, the powder room was in the steeple, while in Quincy the "powder-closite" was in the beams of the roof. Whenever there chanced to be a thunderstorm during the time of public worship, the people of Beverly ran out under the trees, and in other towns they left the meeting-house if the storm seemed severe or near; still they built no powder houses. Grain, too, was stored in the loft of the meeting-house for safety; hatches were built, and often the corn paid to the minister was placed there. "Leantos," or "linters," were sometimes built by the side of the building for use for storage. In Springfield, Mr. Pyncheon was allowed to place his corn in the roof chamber of the meeting-house; but as the people were afraid that the great weight might burst the floor, he was forbidden to store more than four hundred bushels at a time, unless he "underpropped the floor." In one church in the Connecticut valley, in a township where it was forbidden that tobacco be smoked upon the public streets, the church loft was used to dry and store the freshly cut tobacco-leaves which the inhabitants sold to the "ungodly Dutch." Thus did greed for gain lead even blue Connecticut Christians to profane the house of God.