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 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 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….”
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….”
