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….”
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.]”
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?”
