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Letter from John Steele to John Hemphill (February 16, 1802)
“The news of our Country thro’ last season no doubt you have heard. I mean that concerning Religion. The meetings concerning this have been great. The Subjects affected in a very extraordinary manner. They fall down some as in swoning fits be quite motionless. Others are affected when they fall as if in a convulsive fit….”
Letter from John King to Ashbel Green (May 4, 1802)
“I was lately informed by a neighbour of mine, just returned from the Miami country, where Mr. McNamaar is now settled (he lately moved from Kentucke) that at such meetings there, they who fall down are strongly convulsed, and so violently agitated, that it will require two or three to hold one of them….”
Excerpt from the Autobiography of William Winans (ca. 1802)
“While we resided in Fayette County, I think in 1802, there was a very great Religious excitement among the Baptists and Presbyterians, in that part of Pennsylvania…. The Jerks was a prevailing exercise throughout the whole of this excitement….”
Excerpt from the Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (May 26, 1803)
“While many within the bounds of those [southern and western] Presbyteries have been, as is hoped, effectually called…, there have been multitudes of instances in which great bodily agitations, and other circumstances out of the usual course of religious exercise, have attended the work….”
Letter from Gideon Blackburn to William W. Woodward (August 3, 1803)
“On the first Sabbath, the day after my arrival, soon after I began to speak the [cries] agonies and distress of the convicted drew my attention. Their bodies had all the appearance of convulsions….”
Newspaper Article from the Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Western Star (October 11, 1803)
“A great revival of religion took place in this neighborhood this summer. It began in a way that I never saw before, and it continues in a very strange way. It began with a jurking and shaking of the body, something like convulsion fits, and this bodily exercise continued with some for three or four months, and that daily.”
Letter from Eliza Ramsey to Annie Baxter (September 3–October 10, 1803)
“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….”
Letter from Robert G. Wilson to William W. Woodward (October 24, 1803)
“Two days ago I beheld for the first time…a subject of the very singular bodily exercise common among us…. He wept sore for a long time, & was frequently wrought for a short space as men are in a convulsion fit….”
Letter from Samuel G. Ramsey to Anne Fleming (November 29, 1803)
“[W]e Are exercised in A religious way we think. This is the Genus As general name for the thing; but there Are A great many specimens of this exercise. There is the jerking; this is the most Common. In addition to this, there is the dancing, Laughing, running, walking, pointing, fighting and falling exercise….”
Letter from Hezekiah Balch to Charles Coffin (December 15, 1803)
“I am told… [they] have [another] intire, new, and abominable exercise, which consists, in a large number of them collecting, and breaking wind behind, with all their might….”
Excerpt from the Joseph Brown’s “Biographical Sketch” (ca. 1803)
“I was taken with the Jirks and the impresson was followed with power….”
Excerpt from the Life of William Capers (ca. 1803)
“[P]ersons who were not before known to be at all religious…would suddenly fall to the ground, and become strangely convulsed with what was called the jerks; the head and neck, and sometimes the body also, moving backwards and forwards with spasmodic violence, and so rapidly that the plaited hair of a woman’s head might be heard to crack….”
Excerpt from the Recollections of the Rev. John Johnson (ca. 1803)
“I saw one old lady spring from her seat, and pass a dozen times across the house in every direction, by a succession of leaps from two to six feet; and, to my astonishment, she never failed to light squarely and firmly upon a bench! “
Reminiscences of Samuel Crawford (ca. 1803)
“Dr. Doak’s sermon was unusually powerful, but in the midst of his discourse he was seized with such a violent attack of the jerks that he fell and went rolling and jerking down the hill. He continued to roll for some time, but he finally grew quiet enough to rise and conclude his sermon though his knees continued to shake….”
Excerpt from the Autobiography of Frederick Augustus Ross (ca. 1803)
“[John Patton] told me that he had often seen five hundred men start off at a run through the woods—day as well as night—like so many red deer. Yet nobody ever got hurt. Then, men stood and jerked themselves most violently, holding to saplings trimmed up for this use….”
Published Letter from Gideon Blackburn to Ashbel Green (January 20, 1804)
“The bodily exercise has assumed such a variety of shapes as to render it a truly herculian task to give an intelligent statement of it to any person who has never seen it. However, I do not hesitate to say, that it is evidently the Lord’s work, though marvellous in our eyes….”
Letter from William Hill to Ashbel Green (January 20, 1804)
“They have now the dancing exercise, the Jerking, exercise, the running exercise, the standing exercise, & even the shooting exercise…. I am afraid what I believe was a gracious visitation from heaven in the first instance will be brought into disgrace by these extravagances….”
Excerpts from Lorenzo Dow’s History of Cosmopolite (February 14–20, 1804)
“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….”
Excerpts from the Journal of Robert Breckinridge McAfee (April 21–August 12, 1804)
“The religious people now have the Jirks which operates like Hickups….”
Excerpt from the Journal of William Williamson (June 28–29, 1804)
“Saw much of what is called the jirks…. Set out for home with anxious mind.”
Excerpts from the Journal of Richard Green Waterhouse (June–December 1804)
“A strange and unknown Nervous Affection, or Disease, made its appearance, in a variety of forms, in different parts of the Counties of Knox and Blount…. [It] was termed; ‘the Jerks.'”
Letter from Samuel M. Wallace to Anne “Nancy” Fleming (July 20, 1804)
“Those who withdrew themselves last fall from the Presbyterian Church, perhaps, go to greater lengths, than any set, or sect, of people ever did. The Tenesse exercise has got very comon among them….”
Excerpt from Richard McNemar’s “General Review” (July 1804)
“The jerking & barking exercises were astounding….”
Excerpts from Lorenzo Dow’s History of Cosmopolite (October 1–19, 1804)
Camp-meeting commenced at Liberty: here I saw the jerks; and some danced: a strange exercise indeed….
Excerpt from the Journal of Learner Blackman (October 20–21, 1804)
“[M]et with…Lorenzo Dow at a meeting at Liberty Hill on Nashville. There I saw much of the dancing and jerking exercises among those of the best standing in society. This was and still is in many respects an unaccountable exercise to me….”
![Newspaper Article from the [Richmond] Virginia Argus (October 24, 1804)](https://blog.richmond.edu/jerkshistory/files/2018/02/VirginiaArgus1804-1080-400x250.jpg)
Newspaper Article from the [Richmond] Virginia Argus (October 24, 1804)
“There is one species of these ‘religious exercises’ which are certainly involuntary, and they have spread from the camp and other religious meetings, in an alarming manner. These are called ‘the jerks.'”
Letter from Samuel M. Wallace to Anne “Nancy” Fleming (November 2, 1804)
“The dissenters from the Presbyterian sect has increased in number considerably and still continue to be warmly engaged in religion. They are exercised with almost all the different kinds of exercise, that you have heard of in Tenesse and Kentucky….”
Newspaper Article from the Hudson, New York, Bee (November 6, 1804)
“It is asserted in some prints, that these assemblies have originated a disorder called the Jerks….”
Minutes from the Records of the Lexington Presbytery (November 6, 1804)
“[The Presbytery] is hereby enjoined on all the members of this Presbytery to prevent as far as may be in their power, all extraordinary bodily exercises which appear voluntary & ostentatious…”
Published Letter by James Ward (November 8, 1804)
“[W]e have reason to fear, from what has appeared, that the jirks will check the work in a considerable degree; for many are so fearful, that they will not go to meeting, lest they should catch them….”
Published Letter from James Robinson to Ashbel Green (November 10–December 10, 1804)
“In Greenbriar, the first subjects of these strange exercises were two firm and steady professors of religion, men of firm nervous systems…. These strange appearances have crossed the Allegany [Mountains] and seem to be progressing pretty fast eastward….”
Letter from Annie Baxter to Anne Fleming (December 29, 1804)
“You must not beleive all you here of the bodyly affections &c amongst us. Their is so much more than the truth said that I have determined to belive nothing I do not see….”
Excerpt from the Autobiography of Peter Cartwright (ca. 1804)
“I always looked upon the jerks as a judgment sent from God, first, to bring sinners to repentance; and, secondly, to show professors that God could work with or without means…, and do whatsoever seemeth him good.”
Excerpt from William Henry Foote’s Sketches of North Carolina (ca. 1804)
“A venerable clergyman now living…was affected by the jerks a few times…. Suddenly he began leaping about, first forward, then sideways, and sometimes, standing still, would swing backward and forward ‘see-saw fashion.’ This motion of his body was both involuntary and irresistible at the commencement….”
Excerpt from Thomas Hunt’s “Autobiographical Sketches” (ca. 1804)
“This work [the Kentucky Revival] continued until the year 1805, with various manifestations and opperations of outward power, such as the jerks, barks, singing, dancing, shouting, and the like….”
Excerpt from Robert Stuart’s “Reminiscences” (ca. 1804)
“It was evident to every spectator, that this, and it may be said, in general, with respect to all the bodily exercises, that they were involuntary; for it seemed impossible that the body could be so agitated by any dictate of the will….”
Excerpt from “The Life and Times of Robert B. McAfee” (1804)
“The Religious excitement still continued followed with what was called the Jirks, (strong Spasmodic excitement) dancing & falling down Sermons at New Providence & the churches generally….”
Excerpt from the Autobiography of Israel Mitchell (ca. 1804)
“I am awair that those that have never saw these things [the jerks] will be ready to say it is utterly imposable and cannot be true. But who has not seen persons in fits…preform faits [feats] intirely beyand the power of man while in the exercises of reason?”
Excerpt from The Biography of Elder David Purviance (ca. 1804)
“But the bodily exercise (as it was called) seemed to change its manner of operation. The falling exercise became not so common, and the jerks succeeded….”
Excerpt from the “Life of Rev. John Rankin” (ca. 1804)
“A wonderful nervous affection pervaded the [camp] meetings. Some would tremble as if terribly frightened, some would have violent twitching and jerking; others would fall down suddenly as if breathless and lie during hours…. Great disillusion followed.”
Excerpt from David Spinning’s “Short Sketch” (ca. 1804)
“[T]o return to my narrative of the Revival, it now went on with a great increase of numbers, & extended far and wide. The falling exercise continued; also much severe jirking. There were many now converts added….”
Excerpt from the Biography of Eld. Barton W. Stone (ca. 1804)
“The jerks cannot be so easily described…. When the whole system was affected, I have seen the person stand in one place, and jerk backward and forward in quick succession, their head nearly touching the floor behind and before…..”
Excerpt from James B. Finley’s “Sketch of the Rev. David Young” (Summer 1804)
“In this year [1804] that strange disorder ‘the jerks’ overran all Western Tennessee. It attacked the righteous and the wicked—an involuntary muscular exercise, which drew the subjects affected backward and forward with a force and quickness perhaps previously unknown to the human family….”
Excerpt from Jacob Young’s Autobiography of a Pioneer (August 1804)
“I made a pause, then exclaimed, at the top of my voice, ‘Do you leave off jerking, if you can.’ It was thought more than five hundred commenced jumping, shouting, and jerking. There was no more preaching that day….”
Excerpts from the Journal of Benjamin Seth Youngs (January 22–March 21, 1805)
“At 9 we eat breakfast & about 10 we went 3 Miles to Robert Tates a family of Jerkers. He is an elder of a Presbyterian society. 7 of his family have the Jerks with himself. 2 hours had conversations with several, & saw what was very wonderful….”
Excerpt from the “Concise Sketch of the Life and Experience of Isachar Bates” (January 31, 1805)
“We called and saw them have the jirks and asked them qustions and went on….”
Letter from John Meacham, Issachar Bates, and Benjamin Seth Youngs to the Shaker Ministry (January 31, 1805)
“I took the Jerks, & was the first person that had it in these parts. Sometimes I have had it in meditating on serious things when alone, sometimes by seeing the situation of the wicked, sometimes by reading, or hearing some striking expressions, sometimes in going about my common employment, & sometimes while in bed….”
Excerpts from the Journal of Benjamin Seth Youngs (March 23–May 23 1805)
“[T]he exercises by the invisible power of God went pointedly to the destruction of all antichristian forms, and inventions of men by such exercises as Jerking…& the restitution of, the true worship of God by such as dancing….”
Excerpt from the Memoir of the Rev. Jesse Lee (May 9, 1806)
“[O]ne circumstance contributed not a little to interrupt the harmony of the meeting…, which was the wild enthusiasm displayed by a certain female…. [S]he exhibited at some times the jerking exercise, at other times the dancing exercise, and not unfrequently the [barking] exercise….”
Published Letter from John Wilkinson to William Maclin (April 18, 1805)
“[The Jerks consist] in a sudden inclination, or reclining, of the shoulders, and is so quick, that the head appears to move too slow for the shoulders…. This is common to both sexes, but with this difference, that men seldom have more than one jerk…; whereas, a woman will frequently continue a repetition of that motion…for ten or fifteen minutes, reclining backwards as far as her feet, or some other obstacle will permit her, and bending so far forwards, as almost to touch the floor with her head….”
Letter from John Meacham, Issachar Bates, and Benjamin Seth Youngs to David Osborn (April 27, 1805)
“Soon after they began to sing several were taken with the Jerks, while sitting on their seats. Their heads, & shoulders were Jerked back & forth, with such increasing violence, that in a few seconds their hats, & bonnets, & even hankerchiefs which were tied close to their heads would fly off. Some would soon be Jerked flat on the floor, in a manner very mortifying to all delicate feelings….”
Letter from William Radford to John Preston (May 14, 1805)
“The Jerks are making their apperance again and will spread generally with the lower class of people….”
Extracts from the Journals of Thomas Mann (May 18–August 4, 1805)
“Som Shouted Som cryd Som Had the Jurks and I was powerful tempted. I never Saw Aney person Have them befour and I Cannot Account for it. God only know the Causes….”
Excerpt from the Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (May 22, 1805)
“There appears…reason to believe that in certain places, some instances of these bodily affections have been of such a nature, and proceeded to such lengths as greatly tended to impede the progress and to tarnish the glory of what, in its first stages, was so highly promising….”
Excerpt from the Journal of Noah Fidler (May 30, 1805)
“Several took an exteordinry exercis of shaking there heaad and working there arms. How wonderful is the work of the Lord.”
Excerpts from the Journal of Benjamin Seth Youngs (May 30, 1805–January 14, 1806)
“Charity M. came about 10 A.M. with the Jerks & in trouble & opened her mind to B. She said She received the Jerks to be a compelling power from God….”
Felix Roberton’s Essay on Chorea Sancti Viti (June 5, 1805)
“I suppose there are but few individuals in the United States, who have not at least heard of the unparalleled blaze of enthusiastic religion which burst forth in the western country about the year 1800…. It was under these circumstances that some found themselves unable by voluntary efforts to suppress the contraction of their muscles….”
Letter from Francis Asbury to Daniel Hitt (July 28, 1805)
“Brother Dougharty writes they serve God all manner of ways, jerking, dancing, etc.; yet the work goes on….”
Published Letter by Rev. Mr. Mc’Leain (May 7, 1805)
You have requested me to give you an account of those extraordinary exercises called the Jirks; with which request I now comply.
Newspaper Article from the Charleston Courier (October 14, 1805)
“The jerking convert…is seized with violent fits of jerking, which generally brings him to the ground, where he lies as if labouring under a slight convulsive fit; and when the spasm seems to abate, the person immediately begins shouting and praising God for effecting his conversion….”
Extracts from the Missionary Journal of John Lyle (October 27–November 3, 1805)
“Mr. McGready said sometime afterwards that we could not account for jerking &c. on any natural principle, that the jerks were designed to answer the end of miracles, in drawing the attention of mankind & convincing infidels of the power of God….”
Excerpt from Thomas Brown’s Account of the People Called Shakers (ca. 1805)
“People of every age, sex, sect, and condition appeared to be more or less affected with the disagreeable operations of these exercises, not only at their meetings, but in their daily employments….”
Extracts from the Published Missionary Journal of John Lyle (November 2–3, 1805)
“The jerks were by far the most violent and shocking I had ever seen. The heads of the jerking patients flew, with wonderous quickness, from side to side, in various directions, and their necks doubled like a flail in the hands of a thresher….”
Excerpt from David Rice’s Epistle to the Citizen’s of Kentucky (1805)
“Am I an opposer of a revival of religion, when I say the jirks, dancing &c. are not God’s instituted means of Grace, nor Scriptural evidences of true religion? and that when they are voluntary, they are a corruption of God’s worship?”
Excerpt from the Journal of Benjamin Seth Youngs (January 5, 1806)
“In the evening most of the believers met [for] the first time publicly in this place…. A. Dunlavy who had never before been exercised, was taken with shaking & Jerking from that to dancing, which continued for 4 hours with scarce any intermission.”
Excerpt from the Journal of Benjamin Seth Youngs (January 11, 1807)
“Daniel Potters wife an unbeliever & had a for a long time been a bitter opposer in time of labouring, broke fourth by the power of God, Jerking & dancing with her hair all over her face….”
William Young’s “Thoughts on the Exercises” (February 20, 1806)
“I presume not to condemn the persons thus influenced [by the jerks], nor to detract from the sincerity of their devotion; but my wish is to remove the delusion of supposing it to be a bodily disease, and leave the intrinsic merits of the subject to Him, who “searcheth the hearts and trieth the reins of the children of men….”
Excerpt from Joseph Thomas’s Life of the Pilgrim (March 1806)
“In my serious reflections and enquiries after the salvation of my soul, the various noise and exercise of the people would oftentimes stagger me. I was sometimes rather doubtful, and almost led to believe that it was all enthusiasm and strong delusion….”
Excerpt from the Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (May 21, 1806)
“Bodily exercise profiteth little….”
Excerpt from the Diary of Paul Henkel (September 6, 1806)
“During the sermon I saw a young girl doing the strange movement that the English call the jerks…..”
Published Letter by Jacob Gruber (ca. 1806)
“When any ask me to explain all these antics or exercises, I say I do not explain what I do not understand. Many who had these exercises did not understand them—would not account for them. I am not called to analyze or methodize the jerks: have no tools for that work….”
Extracts from the Journals of Thomas Mann (May 21–September 21, 1807)
“Dr. Hambleton had the Jurks five time[s] in meeting….”
Extracts from the Diary of John Early (November 18–December 21 1807)
“She…said the Jirks came from the Devil & wou’d go Back to him again. I told her to pray or [I] Did not know But the Jirks wou’d Kill her & she’d go to hell & she said she wished I might to go Hell above all people….”
Excerpt from the Journal of Daniel Boler (ca. 1807)
“[O]ne of the [Shaker] Sisters looked sternly and solemnly at him when all of a sudden he was taken with the jirks and was jirked around the house and thro’ the brush and bushes and would at times be thrown…completely heels over head, flat on his back, and the [hickory] staff which he held in his hand would be thrown 20 or 30 feet from him….”
Excerpt from the Personal Narrative of Joseph Carson (ca. 1807)
“I have seen persons jerked over ground which was rocky and full of stumps, and wonderful to tell, they were never hurt. They would always beg not to be held or touched while thus affected, saying that it caused great pain….”
Excerpt from the South Union Shakers’ “Graveyard Book” (ca. 1807)
“[Robert Pearce] Lived about 79 years; came to believers when about 40 years old, rec’d Faith through one Mikel Dodd; who told him that he was jerked about like a circus actor….”
Excerpt from the Autobiography of Rev. Joseph Travis (ca. 1807)
“I can never forget one Sabbath, standing on a floor to preach: Brother Christie, a pious and upright man, the class-leader, was standing close by me; and while we were repeating and singing the first hymn, he was taken with the jerks, knocked the hymn book out of my hand, and gave my unfortunate nose a hard rap….”
Excerpt from the Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (May 25, 1808)
“In the southern parts of our bounds, the extraordinary revivals of religion have considerably declined; bodily agitations are gradually disappearing….”
Excerpts from Joseph Thomas’s Life of the Pilgrim (Fall 1808–Spring 1809)
“[W]hile [I was] preaching a young woman was taken with the jirks…, and the people being mostly strangers to the like were much alarmed at the operation, as she was frequently jirked from her seat and thrown involuntarily over the floor and across the benches in different directions….”
Excerpt from the Journal of Constant Moseley (June 6, 1808)
“Had meeting at Robert Houstens. A Blessed assembly of people, white, Yellow, & black…. [I]n singing our Songs, the power of God came upon them, some fell with jurks, Some leaping, some dancing. The whole multitude were in motion….”
Excerpt from Eli W. Caruthers’s “Richard Hugg King and His Times” (ca. 1808)
“As for jerking, dancing, & barking, they were only fungi, which grew out of the revival in its state of decay & ought never to be imputed to the work itself….”
Excerpts from the Autobiography of Rev. James B. Finley (ca. 1808)
“These strange exercises that have excited so much wonder in the western country came in toward the last of the revival, and were, in the estimation of some of the more pious, the chaff of the work. Now it was that the humiliating and often disgusting exercises of dancing, laughing, jerking, barking like dogs, or howling like wolves, and rolling on the ground, manifested themselves….”
Excerpt from David Rice’s Second Epistle to the Citizens of Kentucky (1808)
“We ought, however, to have remembered that bodily convulsions, the jirks, &c. are never mentioned in scripture, as evidences of a graceless state, or a delusion of the devil; nor yet as evidences of a work of God’s grace. In a religious view, we ought to have thought but little of them….”
Excerpt from the Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (May 24, 1809)
“[B]odily agitations, where they had appeared, have almost wholly subsided, and have given place to calm inquiry into the great and leading doctrines of the gospel….”
Excerpts from the Missionary Journal of James H. Dickey (August 24–October 16, 1809)
“Preached to a mixed multitude of Seceders, Presbyterians, Baptists, & Methodists. One took the jirks, another old lady shouted. People in general were serious….”
Excerpt from the Autobiography of Benee Hester (August 1809)
“O Lord, if thou wilt grant me the blessing she seems to enjoy, I will willingly have the jerks or anything else thou may please to put upon [me.]”
Excerpt from The Life and Journal of the Rev’d Christian Newcomer (September 4, 1809)
“[O]ne person fell to the ground and shook in every limb in a very remarkable manner. This singular motion they called the jerks….”
Excerpt from the Journal of Benjamin Seth Youngs (December 25, 1809)
“[John Bryant Sr.] While feeling opposed [to Shaker worship practices] was taken with the jirks…. He seized a buckeye sapling, but was jerked into willing obedience & now has full faith in dancing!”
Excerpt from the Autobiography of Mary Morris Smith (ca. 1811)
“There were skeptics who thought they could keep from jerking if they wished, but if any one made sport of it, they were sure to have it the next time they were in a crowd. “
Excerpts from Joseph Thomas’s Life of the Pilgrim (November 10, 1810–May 5, 1811)
“[T]he subjects of this work receive no damage or injury whatever, and the most of them are exceedingly happy when they are thus exercised…. One may ask…, can they not be happy in religion and have the jirks?”
Excerpt from a Letter from Thomas Cleland to Ashbel Green (August 23, 1812)
“One young woman had what I would call the whirling exercise…. It far exceeded anything of the kind I ever saw. I was told that she had had the jirks nearly 3 years…. Afterwards I remonstrated with some of them and cautioned them.”
Thomas Cleland’s Published Letter on “Bodily Affections” (ca. 1812–1824)
“The phenomenon of…suddenly falling or sinking down, under religious exercises, has not been uncommon in times of great excitement…. But the bodily agitation called the jerks is a very different affection….”
Excerpts from the Diary of Isaac Conger (June 15–September 10, 1813)
“I seen a woman have a fit in the morning & the man at knight the first that I ever saw have Convulsion fits. To see the Goodness & the mercy of God in preserving his people how thankful ought I to be….”
Excerpt from A History of the Pioneer Families of Missouri (ca. 1814)
“It was about the year 1814, as near as we can ascertain—for there was no record kept of the matter—that the singular religious phenomenon called the “jerks” began to make its appearance at the camp-meetings….”
Excerpt from the Autobiography of Abraham Snethen (ca. 1814)
“[N]ow I left for cincinati again and on my way heard of the New light Presbytarians…and heard all sort of bad reports a bout them they said that…they would fall and lay for hours and…others jerk backwards and forwards with somuch force that a ladys hair wold crack like a wip….”
Excerpt from the Journal of William Hall (September 14, 1823)
“Many extravagances prevailed during the intervals of the preaching, particularly among the Females: called here jerking, it appears to be similar to hysteric affection. Several were so much exhausted by these exertions as to fall to the ground apparently lifeless & were conveyed to the shade by the bystanders.”
Excerpt from Joseph Tarkington’s Autobiography (1811)
“There is something in the jerks unexplainable….”
Excerpt from The Life and Times of the Rev. John Brooks (1811)
“Here I first saw what was called the jerks, a very strange as well as disgusting exercise….”
Excerpt from Joseph Brown’s “Biographical Sketch” (Fall 1814)
“The peopel had the Jirks Shouting and d[a]ncing and…those that atempted to desribe there fealing while ingaged in the above exersize sayed the[y] had the most hevenly fealing that [they] ever felt in the there life….”
Excerpt from a Letter by John Meacham (August 19, 1815)
“For better than four months past, our meetings have been very powerful…mighty stompings & roarings against the flesh—violent jerking, rolling, & tumbling on the floor….”
Letter from Peter L. Maxey to Oliver H. P. Maxey (November 26, 1845)
“He is a thorough Methodist believes in all of the religious exercises after the straightest of the sect…. I shall not fall out with him for advocating the genuine Jerks….”
Newspaper Article from the Delaware State Reporter (November 1, 1857)
“Our informant was present at several of their meetings in Avoca, and describes the scene as very exciting. From fifty to a hundred were jerking at the same time….”
Excerpt from a Published Letter by Ezra Keller (January 28, 1837)
“What the real cause of this singular phenomenon is has been a matter of dispute. It seems to me to have been one of those demonical possessions which were so numerous in the days of the Savior and we…have reasons to believe that they still exist and not in small numbers.”
Newspaper Article from the New York Tribune (November 1, 1857)
“The scene in the church was often supremely ludicrous. Just imagine forty or fifty persons going through all the different postures, twistings, bendings, strikings, kickings, and other violent motions…, and you will have a faint idea of the scene exhibited here night after night….”
Joseph Badger’s “Account of the Strange Exercise called the Jirks” (November 1826)
“I saw several young ladies…, who began to be uncommonly exercised…. It appeared to mortify and embarrass them very much, when they had ‘the power’ as it was called…. [T]heir shoulders would be seized with violent and sudden convulsions, the neck, also, would be affected with spasms, which threw back the head in a frightful manner….”
Article on “Jerks: Ancient and Modern” (1858)
“The duration of this epidemic was much shorter than that of most of those in Europe. In a little more than a twelve-month, it had almost entirely disappeared…. It was to the scenes enacted at this time, we believe, that the epithet ‘Jerks’ was first applied.”
Excerpt from the Autobiography of James Norman Smith (January, 1850)
“When I told him about the few professors of religion [in Texas, Joseph Brown] became greatly excited and had the jerks…. I told him that if he did not stop his whooping that I would get in the other bed so he promised to be quiet but we quit the subject of religion in the new settlement….”
Excerpt from the “Life and Times of John Rogers” (1817)
“[O]ccasionally I attended [revival meetings in 1817], & witnessed the disorders of Jerking, dancing, swooning….”
Excerpt from Archibald Alexander’s Thoughts on Religious Experience (1844)
“In those remarkable bodily affections, called the jerks, which appeared in religious meetings some years ago, the nervous irregularity was commonly produced by the sight of other persons thus affected; and if in some instances without the sight, yet by having the imagination strongly impressed by hearing of such things….”
Excerpt from the Diary of Jacob Lanius (March 17, 1836)
“One woman took what used to be called in Tennessee the barking exercise. This was something I never witnessed before, and something that I am not prepared to account for on any principal.”
Letter from George Addison Baxter to Archibald Alexander (April 25, 1833)
“[T]he bodily exercise, and the disorders to which it gave rise were of unspeakable injury to the church in that day….”
“History of the ‘Jirks’” in the New York Telescope (February 18, 1826)
“I have frequently thought that a history of the singular exercises, called the “Jirks,” and other strange operations which affected the subjects of the great Kentucky Revival, would be interesting to my readers….”
James J. McDaniel’s Reminiscences of Joseph Brown and the Jerks (ca. 1823)
“About 1822–3…, I attended a camp-meeting at McCain’s…. [T]here I first saw [Joseph Brown] under religious excitement…. Some years before, those peculiar, involuntary and spasmodic exercises known as ‘jerks,’ had been very common…and [they] continued to effect Col. Brown likely through life….”
Published Letter in the Methodist Magazine (October 15, 1820)
“The character of this revival is the least mixed with what is called irregularities or extravangancies of any that I ever saw. We have had nothing of what is called the jirks or dance among us….”
Excerpt from the Religious Remembrancer (August 2, 1817)
“The Rev. John Lyle…witnessed a recurrence of one species of that strange bodily exercise once so common in Kentucky….”
Newspaper Report from the New-London [Connecticut] Daily Chronicle (Fall 1860–Winter 1862)
“The “jerks” were introduced during a protracted meeting in the township of Chelsea, in that county, in the fall of 1860….”
Newspaper Article from the Chicago Evening Post (March 15, 1873)
“Will wonders never cease?”
Excerpt from Home Mission Monthly (1915)
“I am sure she will never forget the ‘Holy Roller’ meetings she attended while here…. 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….”
Clip from Peter Adair’s Holy Ghost People (1967)
“Man’s got the Lord. You can get him too!”
