The second half of this letter by Eliza Ramsey, wife of Presbyterian minister Samuel G. Ramsey, provides crucial information regarding the origins of the jerking exercise. Ramsey defends the authenticity of the jerks by noting that they developed in Gideon Blackburn’s Maryville, Tennessee, congregation shortly “after he left them to go to Philadelphia.” The “mighty power appeared to be of God,” she concludes, since it “cou’d not be ascribed to some particular kind of preaching.” As with other early reports from east Tennessee, Ramsey’s letter details a wide range of unusual somatic phenomena, which she subsumes under the general category of “bodily exercise.” Click here for Blackburn’s descriptions of the revival in his church and here for a related letter by Ramsey’s husband. Conjectural readings and contextual notes appear in square brackets.
Mount Ebenezer, September 3d 1803
My Dear Sister,
I received your letter some time ago giving an account of the death of your little Son and I think I can truly say that I simpathise with you in your sorrows. The circumstances attending the Providence were particularly trying, the suddenes of his death, Brother Baxters absence, and the newness of the scean [scene] to you were all agrevations to your distress, but dear Sister I can allso rejoice with you that in the midst of your affliction you found the consolations of the Lord neither few nor small. I hope you will have it to say that it was good for you to be afflicted, and that it will yeald the peacable fruites of righteousness. This is the peculiar priviledge of the children of God, and this is the promise made to them that are really his children, that afflictions shall be sanctified to them, and I have often thought that the tender fatherly affection of our Heavenly Parent is more clearly manifested in the [rod] of chastisement than when he sends us prosperity; when I began to write I intended saying a good deal more on this subject, but I refer you to Newtons letters on affliction and a little peice of Flavels entitled a token for mourners which is much more to the purpose then any thing I can say on the subject.
October 10th
I laid away my pen on account of my indisposition, and altho I am not yet well I am better. I have a little daughter just three weeks old. She has been very sick for eight or ten days past but I begin to hope is on the recovery. For four days past I have been alone. Our family were attending on the administration of the Sacrement at our lower meeting House. Dear Sister you ask me for a particular account of the revival hear, and glady wou’d I gratify you, but where to begin or what to say I am really at a loss. To tell you very circumstaticlly of all the different appearances the work has made even in so short a time, with the different effects it has had on the subjects of bodily exercise together with the numbers exercised and supposed to have embraced religion, wou’d be a task beyond the reach of my strength and leasure at present. You will therefore have to be contented with a very general account of it. One thing remarked by a number of people was that the bodily exercise made its first appearance in Mr. Blackburns congregation in the first society in which the people met after he left them to go to Philadelphia and thus the mighty power appeared to be of God and cou’d not be ascribed to some particular kind of preaching as a number of people were desirous it Shou’d be. Soon after this it appeared in our congregation at the sacrement which I beleive was in June. On Monday about forty persons were exercised. A considerable number of these were persons of undoubted piety. They were struck down under sweet impress[ive] views of divine things. Some others were under convictions for sin. From this time the work has been spreading and increasing among us; we have had a number of Sacrements thro’ the Summer where multitudes attend. Numbers now go with their Waggons and familys and camp on the ground who were Scarcely ever seen at Sermon before. Numbers are made to pray before hundreds who had never uttered a prayer in the course of their lives; little children 8 and 10 years old are the subjects of bodily exercise and some of them pray and talk in a manner astonishing for their years. Some have been the subjects of bodily exercise for weeks together and at last shook it off without having their minds at all impressed with divine things; with others it has been the begining, and appeared to be the opperating means of convictions which it is to be hoped ended in sound conversion; with others their bodily exercise appeared to be excited by their mental discoverys.
Their was a sacrement administer[ed] in Tenessee congregation (about 8 or 10 miles below Mary Ville where Mr. Blackburn is placed) which is said to have been the largest asemblage of people that ever appeared in this country on the like occasion. Messrs. Finley and Houston from Kentuckey attended there. They supposed the exercise on that occasion greatly exceeded the Cain Ridge Sacrement in Kentuckey which was so much talked of an which I suppose you have heard of. At this our last Sacrament the [bodily] exercise has made its appearance. We have now got the Silent, the jirking, the laughing, and the dancing also the [runing] & pointing exercises. Each one of these in their turns have staggered serious people but they are still as it were constrained to acknowledge this O Lord is thy work, and it is wondrous in our eyes.
My dear Sister this account is so faint, so incoherent, and so far short of the work itself that I feel ashamed to offer it to you, but as writing of late has become [torn] a task to me I will probably not attempt a better [one]. I feel a great desire to see you. I wish the work prevailing amongst us wou’d prove a sufficient inducement to Brother Baxter to pay us a visit, and then my dear Sister cou’d you not muster up resolution to come along.
Mr. Anderson and his Lady left us this morning. He has a young Son called Emmons, Baxter, Fuller.
Mr. Ramsey enjoys but tolerable health. The pain in his breast has been worse than usual for some weeks past. Ann Amelia and Reynolds were rather weakly thro’ the summer, but appear very healthy now. Mr. Ramsey wou’d have written, but has put it off for another oppertunity on account of the pain in his breast which is increased by writing, joins with me in cordiall and sincear affections to you both.
Eliza Ramsey
Lexington
Virginia[Conveyed] by the Revered Braidy.
Source
Eliza Ramsey to Annie Baxter, September 3, 1803, box 1, George Addison Baxter Papers, collection 003, Special Collections and Archives, Leyburn Library, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va.
Images courtesy of Special Collections, Leyburn Library, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va.
