In 1786, during their time in England, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams made a pilgrimage to Stratford-upon-Avon to visit the birthplace of William Shakespeare. Like tourists through the ages, they wanted a keepsake. But instead of picking up a postcard or a quill replica, they opted for something a bit more... hands-on.

The two Founding Fathers reportedly chipped off a piece of Shakespeare’s chair—yes, the actual wooden chair said to have belonged to the Bard himself. According to Adams, they did it “in the name of admiration.” They even had the fragment fashioned into a snuffbox, which they proudly took back to America.

It was part reverence, part rebellion: a poetic gesture by two revolutionaries who admired England’s greatest writer, even as they had just helped sever ties with his homeland.