Descended from a Mennonite family that emigrated from Switzerland to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, during the early 1700s, Christian Newcomer emerged as a leading minister in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. Although he traveled extensively among German families and English Methodists in the Shenandoah Valley and western Maryland, Newcomer appears to have witnessed the “singular motion” of the jerking exercise only once: during the fall of 1809 at revival meeting near Harrisonburg, Virginia. Click here for the complete text of Newcomer’s published journal, which spans the period from 1795 to 1830.
4th— This evening we had meeting at Shuey’s; I spoke in the English, and Br. Geeting in the German language; we had a soul-reviving time, one person fell to the ground and shook in every limb in a very remarkable manner. This singular motion they called the jerks. When the person recovered, she praised God with a loud voice.
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Christian Newcomer, The Life and Journal of the Rev’d Christian Newcomer, Late Bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, John Hildt transcr. and trans. (Hagerstown, Md.: F. G. W. Kapp, 1834), 182.
