It was exactly one hundred years ago when Reverend "Little George" Went Hensley, a reformed backwoods bootlegger, walked into the one room chapel of the Church of God of Grasshopper Valley, Tennessee, carrying a wooden box. He strode up to the pulpit, sat down the box and pulled out his bible. He turned to Mark 16:17 and to his flock, he read the following:
"And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."
Then Little George surprised everyone in the chapel. He opened the wooden box and retrieved a large black rattlesnake. He challenged his shocked audience that if the Holy Spirit was truly residing within them that they should be able to handle a venomous serpent and suffer no harm. He told them that the rattler was a symbol of the deviant Satan and that they must prove their mastery over the devil. One by one, the anointed of his flock stepped forward and raised aloft the rattlesnake as the congregation broke out in a cacaphonous roar of strange languages. The sermon was a sensational hit.
The word spread like a wild fire from one church community to the next, and soon true believers were visiting from every southern state. Little George took his sermon-- and his snakeboxes-- on the road, and soon the ranks of the Church of God swelled. For ten years he was the king of the revival circuit with the full support of the Church of God.
Then the inevitable occurred. A devotee was bitten by a rattler and swiftly died. The church community was divided. The church elders condemned snakehandling as a sermon gimmick. But a large portion of the church, mostly younger, made excuses for the bite. The handler was obviously too sinful to pick up a snake, and thus god smote him. The elders made it clear. They banned the practice. And Little George Hensley and a few followers packed up and moved to Harlan, Kentucky where he settled down and was ordained into a Pentecostal order called the Church of God of Prophecy. He preached successfully for ten years, free to demonstrate the virtues of the gospel of Mark. Then, one day he returned home from a preaching tour to discover that his wife and neighbor were having an affair. Hensley stabbed the man.
He turned his back on his faith and hid in the Kentucky Hills, where he rebuilt his still and began to bootleg liquor. Eventually his reputation spread, and the authorities soon tracked him down. He was sent to work on a chain gang.
George managed to escape one day (by the grace of God, in Little George's eyes) while he was unchained and hid in a Pentecostal community in Cleveland, Ohio. He returned to the revival circuit and eventually back to Kentucky. He married 4 times. On June 24th, 1955 George was bitten by his rattlesnake. He maintained that God was on his side and would heal him. He refused any medical treatment. The venom spread through his veins and he died that day.
Today, that spot in Grasshopper Valley, a few miles outside Cleveland, Tennessee, is revered by modern snakehandling churches and considered holy ground, where one of Hensley's converts founded the Dolly Pond Church of God with Signs Following. At least 71 people have died in the US from handling snakes in a church. The Reverend "Little George" Hensley himself was bitten over 400 times during his career.
Snake handling is still legal in West Virginia.
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