KENTUCKY REVIVAL
About the year 1800 an epidemic of religious frenzy, known as the Kentucky Revival, broke out in Kentucky and Tennessee, chiefly among the Methodists and Baptists, with accompaniments that far surpassed the wildest excesses of the Ghost dance. Fanatic preachers taught their deluded followers that the spiritual advent of the kingdom was near at hand, when Christ would reign on earth and there would be an end of all sin. The date generally fixed for the consummation was the summer of 1805, and the excitement continued and grew in violence for several years until the time came and passed without extraordinary event, when the frenzy gradually subsided, leaving the ignorant believers in a state of utter collapse. The performances at the meetings of these enthusiasts were of the most exaggerated camp-meeting order, such as may still be witnessed in many parts of the south, especially among the colored people. Evans, the Shaker historian, who is strong in the gift of faith, tells us that “the subjects of this work were greatly exercised in dreams, visions, revelations, and the spirit of prophecy. In these gifts of the spirit they saw and testified that the great day of God was at hand, that Christ was about to set up his kingdom on earth, and that this very work would terminate in the full manifestation of the latter day of glory.”
From another authority, endowed perhaps with less of fervor but with more of common sense, we get a description of these “exercises” which has a familiar ring that seems to bring it very near home. “The people remained on the ground day and night, listening to the most exciting sermons, and engaging in a mode of worship which consisted in alternate crying, laughing, singing, and shouting, accompanied with gesticulations of a most extraordinary character. Often there would be an unusual outcry; some bursting forth into loud ejaculations of thanksgiving; others exhorting their careless friends to ‘turn to the Lord;’ some struck with terror, and hastening to escape; others trembling, weeping, and swooning away, till every appearance of life was gone, and the extremities of the body assumed the coldness of a corpse. At one meeting not less than a thousand persons fell to the ground, apparently without sense or motion. It was common to see them shed tears plentifully about an hour before they fell. They were then seized with a general tremor, and sometimes they uttered one or two piercing shrieks in the moment of falling. This latter phenomenon was common to both sexes, to all ages, and to all sorts of characters.” (Caswall, The Prophet of the Nineteenth Century, quoted by [Remy].)
After a time these crazy performances in the sacred name of religion became so much a matter of course that they were regularly classified in categories as the rolls, the jerks, the barks, etc. “The rolling exercise was affected by doubling themselves up, then rolling from one side to the other like a hoop, or in extending the body horizontally and rolling over and over in the filth like so many swine. The jerk consisted in violent spasms and twistings of every part of the body. Sometimes the head was twisted round so that the head was turned to the back, and the countenance so much distorted that not one of its features was to be recognized. When attacked by the jerks, they sometimes hopped like frogs, and the face and limbs underwent the most hideous contortions. The bark consisted in throwing themselves on all fours, growling, showing their teeth, and barking like dogs. Sometimes a number of people crouching down in front of the minister continued to bark as long as he preached. These last were supposed to be more especially endowed with the gifts of prophecy, dreams, rhapsodies, and visions of angels.” ([Remy], Journey to Great Salt Lake City, I.)
Twenty years later the jerking epidemic again broke out in Tennessee, and is described in a letter by the famous visionary and revivalist, Lorenzo Dow, who was then preaching in the same region. His description agrees with that given the author by old men who lived at this time in eastern Tennessee. We quote from Dow’s letter: “There commenced a trembling among the wicked. One and a second fell from their seats. I think for eleven hours there was no cessation of the loud cries. Of the people, some who were standing and sitting fell like men shot on the field of battle, and I felt it like a tremor to run through my soul and veins so that it took away my limb power, so that I fell to the floor, and by faith saw a greater blessing than I had hitherto experienced.” At another place he says: “After taking a cup of tea, I began to speak to a vast audience, and I observed about thirty to have the jerks, though they strove to keep as still as they could. These emotions were involuntary and irresistible, as any unprejudiced mind might see.” At Marysville “many appeared to feel the word, but about fifty felt the jerks. On Sunday, at Knoxville, the governor being present, about one hundred and fifty had the jerking exercise, among them a circuit preacher, Johnson, who had opposed them a little while before. Camp meeting commenced at Liberty. Here I saw the jerks, and some danced. The people are taken with jerking irresistibly, and if they strive to resist it it worries them more than hard work. Their eyes, when dancing, seem to be fixed upward as if upon an invisible object, and they are lost to all below. I passed by a meeting house where I observed the undergrowth had been cut down for a camp meeting, and from fifty to a hundred saplings left breast high, which appeared to me so slovenish that I could not but ask my guide the cause, who observed they were topped so high and left for the people to jerk by. This so excited my attention that I went over the ground to view it, and found where the people had laid hold of them and jerked so powerfully that they kicked up the earth as a horse stamping flies. Persecutors are more subject to the jerks than others, and they have cursed and swore and damned it while jerking.” Then he says: “I have seen Presbyterians, Methodists, Quakers, Baptists, Church of England, and Independents exercised with the jerks—gentlemen and ladies, black and white, rich and poor—without exception. Those naturalists who wish to get it to philosophize upon it and the most godly are excepted from the jerks. The wicked are more afraid of it than of the smallpox or yellow fever.”
It is worthy of note that, according to his account, investigators who wished to study the phenomenon were unable to come under the influence, even though they so desired.