HOLY ROLLERS



This is in the Dictionary of Americanisms, but the OED and Soukhanov's

new Flexner both miss it. The DA (and the RHHDAS) quote another newspaper's

reprint a month later, but this is the original, from the Public Ledger, 18

March 1841, pg. 2, col. 4:



A NEW SECT.--A new sect of Religionists, so called, has sprung up in

Yates county, New York, called the "Sweezyites, or Holy Rollers," an

appellation applied on account of their exercises being those of rolling upon

the floor. They practice, it is said, an indiscriminate communion of the

sexes.



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