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….”
Excerpts from the Journal of Robert Breckinridge McAfee (April 21–August 12, 1804)
“The religious people now have the Jirks which operates like Hickups….”
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….”
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….”
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….”
