Chapter XXIII: Appendix: NOTE A: Page 27

The love of religious excitement, attributed by the ex-United States Consul at Singapore, to the mountaineers of East Tennessee, is apt to exist among a civilized, yet, uneducated people, who lead a simple, natural life. Its indulgence was formerly much greater in the Western States.

A religious excitement sprung up in East Tennessee in 1802, which was attended with remarkable bodily manifestations, familiarly called “the jerks.” The affection included among its subjects equally the young and old, the strong and weak, the good and bad in previous moral character, those who desired and those who hated it. Involuntary, it had no premonitory symptoms, and left the patient as he was before. The very atmosphere seemed to be laden with an influence that brought the mind and body into relation and sympathy that were abnormally close. If the preacher, after a smooth and gentle course of expression suddenly changed his voice and language to the awful and alarming, instantly some dozen or twenty persons or more would simultaneously be jerked forward where they were sitting, with a suppressed noise, once or twice, like the barking of a dog. And so it would continue or abate, according to the tenor or strain of the discourse.

This extraordinary nervous agitation commenced in East Tennessee at a “sacramental meeting,” and on that day several hundreds of persons were seized with it. At first uniformly confined to the arms, the quick, convulsive motion went downwards from the elbow, and these jerks succeeded each other after short intervals. For some time no religious meeting was held in which this novel, involuntary exercise was not exhibited by more or less of the audience in that part of the country where it originated. Generally, all who had once been its subjects, continued to be frequently affected, and not only at meeting but at home, and sometimes when entirely alone. After the commencement of the “jerks” they spread rapidly in all directions. Persons drawn by curiosity to visit the congregations where they existed, were often seized, and when they returned home they would communicate them to the people there. In some instances they occurred in remote valleys of the mountains, where the people had no opportunity of communication with the infected. In East Tennessee and the southwestern part of Virginia, their prevalence was the greatest. Soon the “exercise” began to assume a variety of appearances. While the jerks in the arms continued to be the most common form, in many cases the joint of the neck was the seat of the convulsive motion, and was thrown back and forward to an extent and with a celerity which no one could imitate, and which to the spectator was most alarming. A common exercise was dancing, performed by a gentle and not ungraceful motion, but with little variety in the steps. One young woman had what was termed, “the jumping exercise.” It was truly wonderful to observe the violence of the impetus with which she was borne upwards from the ground: it required the united strength of three or four of her companions to confine her down. None of these varieties however, were half so terrible to the spectator, as that which affected the joint of the neck, in which it appeared as if the neck must be broken. Besides these exercises, there were some of the most curious and ludicrous kind. In one, the affected barked like a dog, in another, boxed with fists clenched, striking at any body or thing near, in another, ran with amazing swiftness,--imitated playing on a violin, or sewing with a needle, &c.

The affection was “imported into Kentucky” as well as Virginia. Not only was it contagious, but particular kinds of exercise were caught from a stranger visiting a congregation that had known it in other forms of bodily movement.

These nervous agitations were at first received as supernatural agencies, intended to arrest the attention of the careless multitude, and were therefore encouraged and sustained by many of the pious, but after a while they became troublesome. The noise made by the convulsive motions in the pews was such, that the preacher could not be composedly heard; and in several of the exercises the affected person needed the attention of more than one assistant. Besides, subjects of the jerks became weary of them, and avoided serious and exciting thoughts, lest they should produce this effect. However, they all united to testify, that in the most violent and convulsive agitations, when the head would rapidly strike the breast and back alternately, no pain was experienced; and some asserted, that when one arm only was affected with the jerks, it felt more comfortable than the other through the whole day. In some places the persons affected were not permitted to come to the church on account of the noise and disturbance produced. The subjects were generally pious or seriously affected with religion, but not universally. There were cases in which the careless, and those who continued to be so were seized. The dread of the jerks was great in many persons, both religious and careless, and the affection did not contribute to the advancement of religion. There were persons however, who after much experience still approved them.