“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….”
“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….”
“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.”
“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….”
“[O]ccasionally I attended [revival meetings in 1817], & witnessed the disorders of Jerking, dancing, swooning….”
