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Jersey Devil

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"New Jersey Devil" redirects here. For the NHL Hockey Team, see New Jersey Devils. For other uses, see Jersey Devil (disambiguation).
Jersey Devil
Other name(s)Leeds Devil
CountryUnited States
RegionPine Barrens (New Jersey) State flag

The Jersey Devil is a legendary creature or cryptid said to inhabit the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey, United States. The creature is often described as a flying biped with hooves, but there are many variations.[1] The Jersey Devil has worked its way into the pop culture of the area, even lending its name to New Jersey's team in the National Hockey League.

Legend

Most accounts of the Jersey Devil legend attribute the creature to a "Mother Leeds although the tale has many variations. According to one version, she invoked the devil by saying "let it be the devil" while giving birth to her 13th child, and it either immediately or soon afterward transformed into a devil-like creature and flew off into the surrounding pines.[2][3]

The Jersey Devil remained an obscure regional legend through most of the 18th and 19th centuries until a series of purported sightings in 1909 gained it press coverage and wider notability. Today, the Jersey Devil is considered to be more in the realm of popular culture than folklore.[4]

Reported encounters

There have been thousands of reported sightings of the Jersey Devil since the eighteenth century. This is a list of some of the more notable.

  • According to legend, while visiting the Hanover Mill Works to inspect his cannonballs being forged, Commodore Stephen Decatur sighted a flying creature flapping its wings and fired a cannonball directly upon it to no effect.[5]
  • Joseph Bonaparte, eldest brother of Emperor Napoleon, is also said to have witnessed the Jersey Devil while hunting on his Bordentown estate around 1820.[5]
  • Throughout the 19th century, the Jersey Devil was blamed for livestock killings, strange tracks, and reported sounds.
  • Claims of a corpse matching the Leeds Devil's description arose in Greenwich in December 1925. A local farmer shot an unidentified animal as it attempted to steal his chickens. Afterward, he claimed that none of 100 people he showed it to could identify it.[6]
  • On July 27, 1937 a creature matching the Jersey Devil's description was seen by residents of Downingtown, Pennsylvania.[7]
  • A similar panic to that which occurred throughout the Pine Barrens during 'Phenomenal Week' took place in Gibbstown after a group of boys claimed to have seen a 'monster' matching the Devil's description.[8]
  • Claims of a corpse matching the Jersey Devil's description arose in 1957.[9]
  • In 1960 unusual tracks were found along with loud-shrieking heard near Mays Landing.[10] During the same year the merchants around Camden offered a $10,000 reward for the capture of the Jersey Devil, even offering to build a private zoo to house the creature if captured.[3]
  • According to the New York Times, in 2008 alone, over ten encounters with the Leeds Devil were reported to the local "Devil Hunters" group.[11]

Sightings of 1909

During the week of January 16 through 23, 1909, hundreds of people reported encounters with the Jersey Devil.[12] Newspapers of the time named it "Phenomenal Week" and the public reaction has been called the Devil's "most infamous spree."[12] Reports initially concerned unidentified footprints in the snow, but soon sightings of creatures resembling the Jersey Devil were being reported throughout South Jersey and as far away as Philadelphia and Delaware.[13] The widespread newspaper coverage led to a panic throughout the Delaware Valley prompting a number of schools to close and workers to stay home.[12] Among alleged encounters publicized that week were an attack on a trolley-car full of passengers in Haddon Heights and an attack on a social club in Camden.[14] Police in Camden and Bristol, Pennsylvania supposedly fired on the creature to no effect.[15]

Pop Culture

Film and television

Literature

  • In the novel All the Rage by F. Paul Wilson, the fourth of his Repairman Jack novels, a rogue rakosh – a monster resembling a bipedal shark, first introduced in Wilson's novel The Tomb – disappears into the New Jersey Pine Barrens, with the closing narrative implying that if there isn't already a Jersey Devil, there would be now. Wilson's short story "The Barrens" also features a character who claims to be searching for the Jersey Devil.
  • In the Stephanie Plum novel Plum Spooky (written by Janet Evanovich), the Jersey Devil is mentioned, but not negatively. He lives in the Pine Barrens with the Easter Bunny, Elmer the Fire Farter, and other Unmentionables.
  • 1976 book The Jersey Devil by James McCloy and Ray Miller Jr. Middle Atlantic Press
  • In the novel End of Mae by Angela Yuriko Smith a black demon creature hunts the residents of the New Jersey Pine Barrens in the Whitesbog area. The story ties in with the vampire myth and centers around Mae, a local reporter for The Community News.
  • The 1989 horror novel The Pines by Robert Dunbar largely centered on the legend, as did Dunbar's sequel The Shore with both novels presenting the notion that a form of lycanthropic genetic disorder is responsible for the legend.
  • The Jersey Devil was also talked about in Meg Cabot's 2011 book "Overbite."

Music

  • On October 31, 2008 Bruce Springsteen released a music video and free audio download single titled, "A Night with the Jersey Devil" on the official Springsteen website.
  • The band Coheed & Cambria released a song called "The Devil in Jersey City" about a gang called the Jersey Devils.
  • Kevin Welch wrote "Jersey Devil" and recorded it on the album entitled "You Can't Save Everybody" by Kieran Kane & Kevin Welch with Fats Kaplin which was released in 2004.

Other

See also

References

  1. ^ McCrann, Grace-Ellen (26 October 2000). "Legend of the New Jersey Devil". The New Jersey Historical Society. Retrieved 16 February 2010.
  2. ^ Santelli, Robert (2006). Guide to the Jersey Shore: From Sandy Hook to Cape May (in Santelli). Globe Pequot. ISBN 0762740388, 9780762740383. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  3. ^ a b "Legend of the New Jersey Devil". Retrieved 2010-02-01.
  4. ^ Brunvand, Jan Harold (1998). American folklore: an encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780815333500.
  5. ^ a b S. E. Schlosser. "Joseph Bonaparte and the Jersey Devil". Retrieved 2010-01-05.
  6. ^ Daily Times of Woodbury, December 15th, 1925, quoted in, Moran, Mark and Sceurman, Mark (2004). Weird N.J.: Your Travel Guide to New Jersey's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets. Barnes & Noble. P. 107.
  7. ^ Pennsylvania Bulletin of July 28th, 1937 quoted in [1]
  8. ^ http://www.gloucestercitynews.net/clearysnotebook/2007/02/in_1909_the_jer.html
  9. ^ McNab, Chris (2007). Mythological Monsters. New York: Scholastic, Inc. ISBN 0-439-85479-2.
  10. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A16646295
  11. ^ The New York Times of September 7th, 2008, quoted in, http://www.njdevilhunters.com/art20080907.html
  12. ^ a b c NBC 40 News, Atlantic City, January 24th, 2008, quoted in, http://www.njdevilhunters.com/art20080124.html.
  13. ^ http://www.jerseyhistory.org/legend_jerseydevil.html
  14. ^ Moran, Mark and Sceurman, Mark (2004). Weird N.J.: Your Travel Guide to New Jersey's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets. Barnes & Noble. PP. 104-5.
  15. ^ Moran and Sceurman(2004). P. 105.
  16. ^ "Lou Diamond Philips vs. The Jersey Devil". Retrieved 2010-02-01.
  17. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1604265/

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jersey Devil.
  • Weird NJ: Your Travel Guide to New Jersey's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets by Mark Sceurman and Mark Moran, Barnes & Noble ISBN 0-7607397-9-X
  • The Jersey Devil, by James F. McCloy and Ray Miller, Jr., Middle Atlantic Press. ISBN 0-912608-11-0
  • Tales of the Jersey Devil, by Geoffrey Girard., Middle Atlantic Press. ISBN 0-9754419-2-2
  • A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America, by Donald Culross Peattie, pp. 20–23.
  • The Tracker, by Tom Brown, Jr.
  • William Grimstein's Devil of Jersey, by Billy Staggs. ISBN 978-1-4343-0873-3
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