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The practice of snake-handling first appeared in American Christianity around 1910 and was associated with the ministry of George Went Hensley of Grasshopper Valley in southeastern Tennessee.

Hensley was a minister of the Church of God, now known as the Church of God ( Cleveland ), founded by Richard Spurling and A. J. Tomlinson.

In the 1920s, the Church of God repudiated the practice of snake-handling, and Hensley and his followers formed a separate Trinitarian body.