Excerpt from Richard McNemar’s “General Review” (July 1804)
“The jerking & barking exercises were astounding….”
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 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 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…..”
