Over the course of the nineteenth century, as mainstream evangelical denominations turned to increasingly respectable forms of worship in the emerging southern Bible Belt, the jerking exercise slipped from view. Yet the practice remained an integral part of the spirit-filled practices of independent Holiness-Pentecostals in Appalachia. Home missionaries occasionally encountered the descendants of the original Scots-Irish jerkers in familiar places such as east Tennessee, as this excerpt from a Presbyterian magazine by Julia M. Wilson indicates.
ENCOURAGEMENTS AND DISCOURAGEMENTS
I really think that our Jewett people are exceptionally strong and fine-looking. Our children are hearty, rosy-cheeked and bright. I know of only one family of “dirt-eaters” on the mountain. Their looks are so strange and pallid and woebegone that they haunt one’s dreams. Our young girls are very attractive and many are truly beautiful. Many of our men are over six feet tall and of fine proportions.
Sixteen of our girls and boys committed to memory the new Intermediate Catechism and each received a handsome Bible from Dr. Henry of Philadelphia. Many boys and girls are Christians and active in our Christian Endeavor Society. Three of our young people united with our church recently and are very earnest workers.
Miss Fish says: “The Woman’s Board has no more isolated station in the mountains of the South than Jewett.” But we have been thrilled by imagining that Jewett was the “Hub,” at least for a few days. We have had so many visitors from the outside world! Miss Alice Carroll of Asheville Normal and Collegiate Institute was with us a week, studying life and work in our field. I am sure she will never forget the “Holy Roller” meetings she attended while here. These peculiar ideas and weird meetings were brought into our community about a year ago. These people claim to be the “Church of God” and that all outside of it are lost. They claim to “live above sin,” to heal the sick by “laying on of hands” and prayer, to handle snakes, to handle fire, to “speak in tongues,” and all by the power of the Holy Ghost. In their meetings they shout, dance, jerk, roll on the floor, jump wildly, or lie in a trance as if dead. These, they claim, are different ways of showing that the “power” is on them. In time of prayer all pray aloud at the same time at the top of their voices so that it is impossible to understand anything that is said. Meetings are held for weeks at a time and anyone “with the Holy Ghost” can preach! One man who could not read a word preached a week.
The event of the year is the visit from Mr. Allaben, superintendent of schools of the Woman’s Board. While short, it was a delight and a blessing. His address on “Service” greatly stirred us and our people. I regretted that he was unable to attend a “Holy Roller” meeting and see what we have to contend with. They closed one “big meeting” two days before Mr. Allaben came and began another the day after he left.
We are greatly pleased with the work done by our “Tomato Club” girls. This is a very popular club, and has in it the very best of our girls. Our meetings are enjoyable in a social way and the canning is profitable financially. This means much to our girls and women, who usually find it hard to earn money. We are having a bright and enthusiastic class in music. Eight boys and girls come to the cottage to learn to play on the organ, their ambition being to learn to play for our Sunday school and Christian Endeavor meetings.
Source
Julia M. Wilson, “Encouragements and Discouragements,” Home Mission Monthly: An Illustrated Magazine 30:2 (December 1915): 47–48.
