Lorenzo Dow’s famous journal, History of Cosmopolite, contains some of the earliest and most detailed descriptions of the jerks in east Tennessee. Critics later attempted to blame the barnstorming Methodist itinerant for inciting bodily exercises among his audiences through his emotive preaching performances. Yet the excerpts below suggest that was a curious observer, rather than an instigator, of the “singularity called the jerks.” Dow witnessed similar phenomena several months later, as he journeyed from Pennsylvania to Natchez, Mississippi. Contextual notes appear in square brackets.
February 14th [1804], I spoke in Buncomb to more than could get into the Presbyterian meeting house, and at night also; and good I trust was done. The minister was not an A-double-L part man, but pious. Next day I rode 45 miles in company with Dr. Nelson, across the dismal Allegheny mountains, by the warm springs; and on the way, a young man, a traveller, came in, where I breakfasted gratis at an inn, and said that he had but three sixteenths of a dollar left, having been robbed of seventy-one dollars on the way; and he being far from home I gave him half of what I had with me. My horse having a navel gall come on his back, I sold him, with the saddle, bridle, cloak and blanket, &c., on credit for about three fourths of the value, with an uncertainty whether I should ever be paid—lost forever—thus I crossed the broad French river in a canoe, and set out for my appointment; but fearing I should be behind time, I hired a man, whom I met on the road with two horse, to carry me five miles in haste for three shillings, which left me but one-sixteenth of a dollar. In our speed the observed there was a nigh way, by which I could clamber the rocks, and cut off some miles; so we parted, he having not gone two-thirds of the way, yet insisted on the full sum.
I took to my feet the nigh way as fast as I could pull on, as intricate as it was, and came to a horrid ledge of rocks, on the bank of the river where there was no such thing as going round; and to clamber over would be at the risk of my life, as there was danger of slipping into the river; however, being unwilling to disappoint the people, I pulled off my shoes, and with my handkerchief fastened them about my neck; and creeping upon my hands and feet with my fingers and toes in the cracks of the rocks with difficulty I got safe over; and in about four miles I came to a house, and hired a woman to take me over the river in a canoe, for my remaining money and a pair of scissors; the latter of which was the chief object with her; so our extremities are other’s opportunities. Thus with difficulty I got to my appointment in Newport in time.
I had heard about a singularity called the jerks or jerking exercise, which appeared first near Knoxville, in August last, to the great alarm of the people; which reports I considered at first, as vague and false; but at length like the Queen of Sheba, I set out to go and see for myself; and sent over these appointments into this country accordingly.
When I arrived in sight of this town I saw hundreds of people collected in little bodies; and observing no place appointed for meeting, before I spoke to any, I got on a log and gave out an hymn, which caused them to assemble round, in solemn attentive silence. I observed several involuntary motions in the course of the meeting, which I considered as a specimen of the jerks. I rode seven miles behind a man across streams of water; and held meeting in the evening, being ten miles on my way.
In the night I grew uneasy, being twenty-five miles from my apointment for the next morning at eleven o’clock; I prevailed on a young man to attempt carrying me with horses until day, which he thought was impracticable, considering the darkness of the night, and the thickness of the trees. Solitary shrieks were heard in these woods, which he told me were said to be the cries of murdered persons; at day we parted, being still seventeen miles from the spot, and, the ground covered with a white frost. I had not proceeded far before I came to a stream of water, from the spring of the mountain, which made it dreadful cold; in my heated state I had to wade this stream five times in the course of about an hour, which I perceived so affected my body, that my strength began to fail. Fears began to arise that I must disappoint the people, till I observed some fresh tracks of horses which caused me to exert every nerve to overtake them, in hopes of aid and assistance on my journey, and soon I saw them on an eminence; I shouted for them to stop, till I came up; they inquired what I wanted; I replied, I had heard there was meeting at Seversville by a stranger, and was going to it; they replied that they had heard that a crazy man was to hold forth there, and were going also; and perceiving that I was weary, they invited me to ride; and soon our company was increased to forty or fifty, who fell in with us on the road, from different plantations. At length I was interrogated, whether I knew any thing about the preacher? I replied, I have heard a good deal about him, and had heard him preach, but I had no great opinion of him; and thus the conversation continued for some miles before they found me out, which caused some color and smiles in the company; thus I got on to meeting; and after taking a cup of tea gratis, I began to speak to a vast audience; and I observed about thirty to have the jerks; though they strove to keep still as they could; these emotions were involuntary, and irresistible, as any unprejudiced mind might discern. Lawyer Porter, who had come a considerable distance, got his heart touched under the word, and being informed how I came to meeting, voluntarily lent me a horse to ride near one hundred miles, and gave me a dollar, though he had never seen me before.
Hence to Marysville, where I spoke to about one thousand five hundred; and many appeared to feel the word, but about fifty felt the jerks. At night I lodged with one of the Nicholites, a kind of Quakers, who do not feel free to wear colored clothes. I spoke to a number of people at his house that night. Whilst at tea I observed his daughter, who sat opposite to me at table, to have the jerks, and dropped the tea cup from her hand in the violent agitation. I said to her, “Young woman, what is the matter?” She replied, “I have got the jerks.” I asked her how long she had it. She observed, “A few days,” and that it had been the means of the awakening and conversion of her soul, by stirring her up to serious consideration about her careless state.
Sunday, February 19th, I spoke in Knoxville to hundreds more than could get into the court house, the governor being present. About one hundred and fifty appeared to have the jerking exercise, among whom was a circuit preacher, (Johnson) who had opposed them a little before, but he now had them powerfully; and I believe he would have fallen over three times had not the auditory been so crowded that he could not, unless he fell perpendicularly.
After meeting I rode eighteen miles to hold-meeting at night. The people of this settlement were mostly Quakers; and they had said, as I was informed, the Methodists and Presbyterians have the jerks because they sing and pray so much, but we are a still peaceable people, wherefore we do not have them. However, about twenty of them came to meeting to hear one, as was said, somewhat in a Quaker line; but their usual stillness and silence was interrupted; for about a dozen of them had the jerks as keen and as powerful as any I had seen, so as to have occasioned a kind of grunt or groan when they would jerk. It appears that many have undervalued the great revival, and attempted to account for it on natural principles; therefore it seems to me, from the best judgment I can form, that God hath seen proper to take this method to convince people that he will work in a way to show his power; and sent the jerks as a sign of the times, partly in judgment for the people’s unbelief, and yet as a mercy to convict people of divine realities.
I have seen Presbyterians, Methodists, Quakers, Baptists, Church of England, and Independents, exercised with the jerks; gentleman and lady, black and white, the aged and the youth, rich and poor, without exception; from which I infer, as it cannot be, accounted for on natural principles, and carries such marks, of involuntary motion, that it is no trifling matter. I believe that those who are most pious and given up to God, are rarely touched with it; and also those naturalists, who wish and try to get it to philosophize upon it are excepted; but the lukewarm, lazy, half-hearted, indolent professor is subject to it; and many of them I have seen, who, when it came upon them, would be alarmed and stirred up to redouble their diligence with God; and after they would get happy, were thankful it ever came upon them. Again, the wicked are frequently more afraid of it than the small pox or yellow fever; these are subject to it; but the persecutors are more subject to it than any, and they sometimes have cursed and swore, and damned it, whilst jerking. There is no pain attending the jerks except they resist it, which if they do, it will weary them more in an hour than a day’s labor, which shows that it requires the consent of the will to avoid suffering.
20th. I passed by a meeting house, where I observed the under growth had been cut down for a camp meeting, and from fifty to one hundred saplings left breast high, which to me appeared so slovenish that I could not but ask my guide the cause, who observed they were topped so high, and left for the people to jerk by. This so excited my attention that I went over the ground to view it; and found where the people had laid hold of them and jerked so powerfully that they had kicked up the earth as a horse stamping flies. I observed some emotion, both this day and night among the people; a Presbyterian minister, with whom I stayed, observed, “Yesterday whilst I was preaching, some had the jerks, and a young man from N. Carolina mimicked them, out of derision, and soon was seized with them himself, which was the case with many others; he grew ashamed, and on attempting to mount his horse to go off, his foot jerked about so that he could not put it into the stirrup; some youngsters seeing this, assisted him on, but he jerked so that he could not sit alone, and one got up to hold him on, which was done with difficulty. I observing this, went to him and asked him what he thought of it. Said he, “I believe God sent it on me for my wickedness, and making so light of it in others;” and he requested me to pray for him. I observed his wife had it; she said she was first attacked with it in bed. Dr. Nelson said he had frequently strove to get it, in order to philosophize upon it, but could not; and observed they could not account for it on natural principles….
I CALLED at a gentleman’s house to get some breakfast, and inquired the road; the gentleman observing my tin case in my pocket, (containing my credential from the state of Georgia) and supposing me to be some vile character, took it out and examined the contents without asking my consent; when he had got about half through, as he looked at me I observed he turned pale. He gave me what I wanted, and treated me as a king.
I had not been long gone from the house before a runner on foot overtook me, and another servant on horseback, with a request that I should go back and preach. I did, to many of the neighbors, who were called in. The mistress deserted during the meeting; which to me she denied, until the servants affirmed that she was in the, negro house. I observed to her, that I considered her absence a slight, as they had called me back, and to make it up with me, desired she should let me know the cause of her absence. She replied, she was afraid of the jerks more than of the small-pox or yellow fever.
Lorenzo Dow, History of Cosmopolite; Or the Four Volumes of Lorenzo’s Journal, Concentrated in One… (New York: John C. Totten, 1814), 194–200.
Images courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts.
