Sometime during the 1860s, Oregon settler and abolitionist Israel Mitchell composed a fascinating autobiographical narrative describing his childhood experiences on the Barren River in southside Kentucky. The Great Revival figured prominently in Mitchell’s poorly written and haphazardly unpunctuated manuscript. In this excerpt, he recounts the bodily exercises. Like many of his nineteenth-century contemporaries, Mitchell was fascinated by the “utterly imposable” physical feats performed by men and women struck by the jerks. His account includes several outstanding examples of the “jerker tales” that dominated discussions of the Great Revival in later. Assigning dates to the events described in Mitchell’s autobiography remains difficult, but some of them undoubtedly occurred during the peak months of the jerking outbreak in nearby middle Tennessee. As a result of his bouts with the jerks, Jacob Chism—one of the “wild & disolute young men” mentioned in Mitchell’s narrative—joined the Mill Creek Baptist Church in July 1804 (see Loy R. Milam, Old Mulkey: A Pioneer Plea for the Ancient Order [Tompkinsville, Ky., 2014], B-54). Conjectural readings and contextual notes appear in square brackets.
There was another strange feture that attended this revivle allmost from the first that was what was called the bodely exercises jurks and Danceing singing fighting runing barking & such like exercise. Those exercises ware by no means confined to the religeous or ireligeous but all classes of Society high & low rich or poor learned or ignorant mail and female ware affected tho it was in a general thing among the illiterate & weak minded females that it was most prevalent. Those exercises are heard to discribe. In the jirks as the most common form the head of the person was sudenly jerked back from one to 3 feet and repeeted about once every two seconds & some times continueing for an hour or more and most commonly till the person attacted preformed some act that there concience told them they aught to do such as lead in prair at a prair meeting say grace at the table reprove some person for some sin or impropriety in there conduct & not unfrequently rise and dance in the church. If they refused to do whatever whim struck there mind the jerks would increas in violance throw them furiously on there backs on the floor or ground. So violant have I seen wimen who fearing that they would have them before gowing to meeting would plat there long hair that they would jerk so violantly that their hair would fly so swift & violantly over there heads that it would crack like a whip & so loud as to be heard distinctly all over the hous. I once saw a small woman waying not more than 90 pounds standing in the isle of the church jerking backwards and forwards while her hisband held her by one arm and a neighbour by the other. They waying each from 190 to 200 they ware about 6 feet from the door when she gave a jirk backwards and threw them both out of the door & of[f] two steps lighting on there backs & sholders. I have often seen 10 or 15 at one time thus convulched and not unfrequently seen young and bashfull girls impressed with a thaught that they aught to get up & dance in church probably dureing sermon. They would strive against the jirks till they would be so exosted [exhausted] that they could not stand & the swet runing down there faces and makeing there clothes ringing wet & not unfrequently I have seen 8 or ten danceing at one time some on the seats or benches we had in our backwoods churches.
I have seen weak females try by holding to benches to keep themselvs down lift large heavy seats on which would be seated 4 or 5 heavy men. I once saw a stout young man tho moral yet no professor or religeon take the jirks. He was seting with his back against the wall of a hewed log meeting hous. His head struck the wall. He rose to his feet drew back his fist and struck the wall so hard that the print of his nuckles ware plain to be seen. He then started & ran out of the door whear there was a small tree. He locked his hands around it & commenced jirking back and at every jirk he would bark like a dog looking up the tree. At length he let go the tree & ran about 100 yards jumped over a log about 3 feet in diameter and fell as if dead. It was during evening service. Several of the young men belonging to the church kindled a fire & stayed with him all night and ingaged in prair for him. He seemed as tho he was dead, but all at once he sprang to his feet about 10 oclock praised God & with great joy thanked God that he had thus humbled his pride & taught him that he could do nothing without him. He was ever after a most examplyfying Christian.
One of the most unaccountable things attending those exercises was that most of those that ware attacted with them most & most violant ware those that ware most violantly opposed to them that believed it all pretence or humbug. There was at my Fathers one day a verry volatile young girl about 15 years of age. There was to be preaching at my fathers that evening. One of our neighbours was from home & his wife had 3 or 4 shall children. They lived ½ mile from us and across a small river. My mother told my sister & this girl to go up to this neighbours and help her down with her children. So they started of[f] in a play. As they went threw a small grove this girl commenced mocking a girl which had the jirks at church a few days before. It had not yet become prevolent & when she had begun she could not stop but was jurked down & could not proceed for some time. Just beyand whear they ware was a swamp or lagoon which they had to cross on a log about 3 feet high. As they crossed the log the jirks took her again threw her into the mire and wallowed her all over in the mud. When she had become calm she went into the river & washed her close [clothes] & helped the woman to fetch her children over to meeting. When she returned the congregation had commenced gethering. She hurried threw the frunt room into one whear she could get dry clothes. Mother seeing hur pass in that plice [place] followed her into the room whear I was, & inquired what was the matter. Insted of answering she commenced jirking most violantly but could tell her nothing. My sister however came in and explained all and she soon seast [ceased] to jirk but ever after (while I [k]new her) she would Jirk at ever accusition [accusation] of concience and she would allways say that they ware sent on her as a judgment.
There is one other sircomstance which I will relate. There ware in our neighbourhood a number of verry wild & disolute young men. Among the leaders of the band was Jacob Chisem & Joseph Maines generaly called Jo & Jake. Chisems mother was a pious woman. They had a mill and a tolerable good hous & sometimes mee[t]ings ware held there. One day Jake was seting out in the yard for the house & yard was both full of people & the preacher stood in the door. There was a horstroft [horse trough] such as they used to carry behind there wagons siting on two pins drove in the wall. Jake thaught he aught to go and take it down that a verry little jar would make it fall & it was about half full of brand but service had began & he thaught if he did so his cronys would twit him for takeing such intrest in the meeting. At once the jirks took him (he had been makeing himself and comrads exceeding jolly at makeing fun of them just before the meeting). The[y] were verry violant jerked him down & backwards towards the box. To oppose his gowing he held to & puled over several seats and severl times got two or three steps back. At last they forsed him up to the box. It was about 4 feet from the ground. He whirld him self spitefully round to try again to leave but the jirks whirled him around to the box & he kicked it with both feet over his own head and caught [it] on his feet & turning calmly and considerately round picked up the box & carried it out of the company. As he returned his eye caught on a large stone that had doubtless been placed there to seport plank[s] for seets. He thaught he had better throw it out of the way but he rebelled again. The jirks set him to kicking the stone. He kicked it to the gate when he picked it up & threw it over the fence and came in & sat down compleatly humbled. When the meeting was over for the day Jo Maines who had just been maried and had settled about a mile from Chisems invited a number of his friends home with him to dinner and while at dinner Maines says to his gests if I ever make such a fool of my self as Jake did of himself today I will leave the country. This was no sooner sayed than the jirks threw him back cheer [chair] & all. He sprung to his feet & ran out of the house and in the yard he found a stone which he commenced kicking. After kicking it some time one of his friends threw it over in the medow. The jirks immediately carryed him over the fence after & he commenced kicking it again. After some time some of the company called him & told him it was time to go back to meeting. He swore he never would go to meeting again but the jirks took him backwards all the way to the hous. He then went in and sat down & from that day became an altred man & Jacob Chisem became a Baptist preacher.
I might fill quiers of paper with insidence of this kind of incidence. Nothing however seemed so rediculous as the barking exersise at some of our camp meetings in the groves. Some one seased sudenly with the jirks would jump up & run to a small tree & locking his hands around it would begin to bark. Others who ware in the habit of haveing the jirks would see them & follow suit till sometimes there would be 5 or 6 at one time barking like dogs around the camp. I however never saw a woman barking or a man singing with the singing exercise and I never but once or twice saw men danceing tho I have saw hundreds of women & sometimes 20 or 30 at a time.
The danceing most generly occured while singing songs of prais or those portraying the joys of heaven. Theas ware the times when the singing exorcise prevailed. It was always lively excitable femails. They fell or sunk down whear they stood or ware seated. There eyes became closed. There countenances appeared angelic. They humed a tune soft and melodious such as I never heard by any other beings but those in this trance for I hold it was a trance. One of my sisters had them several times. I asked her if she could tell me what ware her thaughts and feelings. She said she contemplated the Love of God & the injoyments of heaven till she became overpowered and sunk down unconscious and [k]new nothing of what she did till she returned to conciousness. Those spells generly lasted about half an hour.
The most unaccountable of all the bodaly exercises however that I ever knew was the wherling exercise. I however never heard of it but in Bourbon County Cane Ridge and their it only appeared for a month or two. It was among the men. They would seem to be overcome by joy and jumping to their feet they would clap ther hands shout for joy and giving a jump light on one heal and turn like a top some 10 or 15 times so fast as to caus quite a wind so as to extinguish candles at a considerable distance then start and run several yards then jump 20 or even 30 feet light on the other heal and whirl as before.
Source
Israel Mitchell, Autobiography, n.d. [ca. 1860s], Cane Ridge Meetinghouse, Paris, Ky.
