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Jersey Devil

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File:Nj devil notgreyscale.PNG
Illustration of the Jersey Devil, drawn from a description by Nelson Evans in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 1909

The Jersey Devil is a legendary creature said to inhabit the Pine Barrens in southern New Jersey. The Devil is often described as a bipedal flying creature with hooves, but there are many variations. The legend inspired the name of New Jersey's NHL ice hockey team, the New Jersey Devils, and many other pop culture tributes.

Legends

According to one version of the tale, the Jersey Devil was the thirteenth child born to a Mrs. Leeds, a resident of the Pine Barrens in 1735. Mrs. Leeds was so upset at yet another pregnancy that after giving birth she exclaimed, "I am tired of children! Let the devil take this one!" What was once a human child immediately transformed into winged monstrosity; he ate all the other children and flew out through the chimney. There are many versions of this legend, differing in date of the birth and the degree of the Devil's disfigurement. In some stories, the Devil is merely a human child which Mrs. Leeds confined to her cellar or attic, only to have it escape into the woods (see feral children for more on similar legends and real life examples). A fork on this theory may explain how the legend ties in with an actual monster; some people believe that around the time that the hidden deformed child was discovered people began sightings of a beast and put the stories together. Another legend attributes the Devil's birth to a Gypsy curse placed upon a selfish young woman who refused to give the Gypsy food and shelter. There are other tales that suggest Leeds herself was a witch or that she was cursed by locals for having an affair with a British soldier. The Shrouds House, a log cabin within the Pine Barrens, was reputed to be the birthplace of the Devil. Only ruins of the foundation of the house and a few other parts still exist today.

The Jersey Devil has been said to be companion to a headless pirate, a ghostly woman, and a werewolf. In certain parts of South Jersey, the Devil is rumored to live in an apocryphal Agent Orange plant near Chatsworth, a very small town surrounded by forest and sand.

There is another description of the New Jersey devil that is well-known to local people in South Jersey. A woman in South Jersey was having her first baby and she wanted him to be perfect. When the baby was born, it was the most ugly looking baby that anyone had ever seen at that time. The mother was so upset that she said "This isn't my son. This is the devil's son. May God give the thing back to him!" After saying this, she threw her son into the river. The son died. Now that river is said to be haunted by the devil. Many people have died there. It is said that there is an unknown source which sucks air to it from under a rock. When people swim near there, they are sucked under the rock; they are then held there until they die. Once they are dead, the body is let go so that it floats to the top for everyone to see.[citation needed]

Native American legends told of the devil as a friendly being that protected the Pines. Sightings of the devil were believed to be signs of good fortune. This view was widely accepted by locals from the late 1700s until 1909.

The legend has inspired several novels -- notably THE PINES by Robert Dunbar -- and films.

Encounters

In 1840, the Jersey Devil was blamed for livestock killings. 1841 saw a similar attack, accompanied by strange tracks and screams. The Devil made an 1859 appearance in Haddonfield. Bridgeton witnessed a flurry of sightings during the winter of 1873.

Joseph Bonaparte (eldest brother of Emperor Napoleon) is said to have seen the Jersey Devil while hunting on his Bordentown, New Jersey, estate. Commodore Stephen Decatur is claimed to have fired upon the Devil while testing ammunition on a New Jersey firing range. He and his audience were dumbfounded to watch the Devil continue its flight apparently untouched.

January 1909, however, saw the most widespread period of sightings ever recorded. Thousands of people claimed to have seen the Jersey Devil during the week of January 16 – 23. Newspapers nationwide followed the story and published eyewitness reports. Hysteria gripped the entire state during this terrible week.

  • 16th (Saturday) — The Devil was sighted flying over Woodbury.
  • 17th (Sunday) — In Bristol, Pennsylvania, several people saw the creature and tracks were found in the snow the following day.
  • 18th (Monday) — Burlington was covered in strange tracks that seemed to defy logic; some were found on rooftops; others started and stopped abruptly, with no origin or destination. Several other towns found similar footprints.
  • 19th (Tuesday) — Nelson Evans and his wife, of Gloucester, found the Devil outside their window at 2:30 AM .
    • Mr. Evans gave the following account: "It was about three feet and a half high, with a head like a collie dog and a face like a horse. It had a long neck, wings about two feet long, and its back legs were like those of a crane, and it had horse's hooves. It walked on its back legs and held up two short front legs with paws on them. It didn't use the front legs at all while we were watching. My wife and I were scared, I tell you, but I managed to open the window and say, 'Shoo!' and it turned around, barked at me, and flew away".
    • Two Gloucester hunters tracked the Devil's seemingly impossible trail for 20 miles. The trail appeared to jump fences and squeeze under eight-inch gaps. Sightings were reported in several other towns.
  • 20th (Wednesday) — In Haddonfield and Collingswood, posses were formed to find the Devil. They watched him fly off toward Moorestown, where he was later sighted by at least two people.
  • 21st (Thursday) — The Devil attacked a trolley car in Haddon Heights, but was chased off. Trolley cars in several other towns began to maintain armed guards. Several poultry farmers found their chickens dead. The Devil was reported to have walked into an electric rail in Clayton, but if this did happen, it did not kill the beast. A telegraph worker near Atlantic City claimed to have shot the Devil and watched him limp into the woods. If so, he was not fazed much because he continued his assault, visiting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and West Collingswood, New Jersey (where he was hosed by the local fire department). The Devil prepared to attack nearby people, who threw whatever they could find at it. Right as he was about to strike, the Devil flew away. He emerged later in Camden and injured a dog, ripping a chunk of flesh out before the dog's owner drove it away. This is the first Devil attack on a living creature that was witnessed.
  • 22nd (Friday) — Last day of sightings. By now many towns were in a panic, with businesses and schools closed for fear of the creature. It was, however, only seen a few times that day and did not attack anything.

In addition to the number of major attacks and sightings, the Devil was sighted flying over many other towns. Since the week of terror in 1909, sightings have slowed considerably, but by no means did they end. In 1951 there was another panic in Gibbstown, New Jersey, after local boys claimed to have seen a humanoid monster and heard screams. As recently as 1991, a pizza delivery driver in Edison, New Jersey, described a night encounter with a white, horse-like creature. There today exist many websites and magazines (such as Weird NJ) which catalog sightings of the Devil.

Descriptions

Many different descriptions have been by those who have seen the creature. Several eyewitness accounts follow.

  • "I looked out upon the Delaware and saw flying diagonally across what appeared to be a large crane, but which was emitting a glow like a fire-fly. Its head resembled that of a ram, with curled horns, and its long thick neck was thrust forward in flight. It had long thin wings and short legs, the front legs shorter than the hind." — E.W. Minster, Bristol, PA. Sighted on January 16, 1909.
  • "It was three feet high... long black hair over its entire body, arms and hands like a monkey, face like a dog, split hooves [...] and a tail a foot long". — George Snyder, Moorestown, NJ. Sighted on January 20, 1909.
  • "In general appearance it resembled a kangaroo... It has a long neck and from what glimpse I got of its head its features are hideous. It has wings of a fairly good size and of course in the darkness looked black. Its legs are long and somewhat slender and were held in just such a position as a swan's when it is flying...It looked to be about four feet high". — Lewis Boeger, Haddon Heights, NJ. Sighted on January 21, 1909.
  • "As nearly as I can describe the terror, it had the head of a horse, the wings of a bat and a tail like a rat's, only longer". — Howard Campbell, who claimed to have shot the devil near Atlantic City (see above). Sighted on January 21, 1909.
  • "It was about three and a half feet high and seemingly torn bat-like wings. Its head was horse-like and it had a long, thin neck. Crane-like legs with horse hooves and short front legs. It also had a tail which was a bit lion-like. It made a strange barking noise." — Manon Dirne and Marjolein Bente, Nuenen. Sighted on July 6, 2006.
  • "In august of 2001, i was walking home from my friend's house party at around 3am. i was walking towards the exit of the development, Lost Tree. this is located in Voorhees, south jersey. as i was walking towards the exit, this strange animal ran across me. it looked like a kangaroo, about 4 feet high. it ran on 2 legs and its movement was like a 2 legged gallop. it ran by quite quickly but it wasn't quick enough where i was imagining things. i stopped dumbfounded, and stood there about 30 feet away. i felt goosebumps, fear, and i was perplexed at what i had seen. until this day, i would give anything to go back to that night with a video camera to capture what i saw on tape. sighted august 2001 by david camp, voorhees, south jersey.

While the descriptions vary, several factors remain fairly constant. It is commonly described as having a long neck, with wings and hooves. It is often said to have a horse-like head and a tail. The height of the creature varies among sightings from about three feet to more than seven feet. Most sightings also report that the creature has glowing bright red eyes and emits a high, human-like scream.

Origins

There are many possible roots of the Jersey Devil legends. The Pine Barrens, as their name suggests, were avoided by early settlers as a desolate, threatening area. The barrens provided a natural refuge for those who wished to remain hidden, starting with religious dissenters, loyalists, fugitives and deserting soldiers in colonial times. These people, cut off from much of the outside world, formed their own solitary groups and were pejoratively referred to as "pineys". Some of the pineys included notorious bandits known as Pine Robbers. Pineys were further demonized after two eugenics studies at the turn of the century depicted them as congenital idiots and criminals. It is easy to imagine early tales of terrible monsters arising from a combination of sightings of genuine animals such as bears, the activities of pineys, and fear of the imposing barrens themselves.

Outdoorsman and author Tom Brown, Jr. spent several seasons living entirely within the wilderness of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. He recounts several occasions when terrified hikers mistook him for the Jersey Devil, particularly after he covered his whole body in mud to repel mosquitoes.

Of course, the most influential, and probably most important, roots of the tales of the Jersey Devil are the testimonials of people who have come into contact with the creature, from before the European settlers arrived to the present day.

  • THE PINES (Delirium Books) -- a horror novel by Robert Dunbar -- explores the more Gothic aspects of the myth.
  • In the Extreme Ghostbusters episode "The Jersey Devil" the Ghostbusters run into the Jersey Devil while driving through New Jersey. The Devil is described as a "Class 3 Bioferric Spectre, a demonic lifeforce inhabiting iron ore and other minerals." The Devil was supposedly created when a demon possessed ore being smelted in a forge in Hanover, New Jersey. The Ghostbusters destroy the Devil when they use an old cannon to blast it back into the forge and smelt it back down to its base materials.
  • There is a Jersey Devil Monster in My Pocket action figure (#115), as well as one in the Cryptozoology Action Figures line.
  • The fifth episode of The X-Files centers on murders committed by the "Jersey Devil," later revealed to be feral (yet relatively harmless) human beings.
  • The 1998 PlayStation game, Jersey Devil. In the game, the Jersey Devil is a Batman-like cartoon Superhero who was first discovered by a mad scientist's assistant during a night walk to find new creatures to experiment on. The Baby Devil escapes dissection (due to his physical appearance) and disappears into the night, only to return years later to fight the mad scientist's mutant vegetable army.
  • The 1998 movie The Last Broadcast centers on the brutal and mysterious murders of a public access crew that traveled into the Pine Barrens of New Jersey in search of the Jersey Devil.
  • Dante Tomaselli's 2005 film Satan's Playground involves a family who runs afoul of a murderous backwoods family that may or may not be responsible for the birth of the Jersey Devil.
  • There was also a small B-grade horror film, 13th Child: Legend of the Jersey Devil, filmed on location in the Pine Barrens.
  • In the DeLorme New Jersey Atlas & Gazetter, on page 56, near to a marker for the Pine Barrens, there is a very small image which, when viewed closely, appears to be a winged devil.
  • There is a professional wrestler in New Hampshire-based WAW called "The Jersey Devil". He is tall and scrawny with a painted face resembling a smile and horns and wears tattered and torn clothing.
  • South Jersey Rebellion Productions published a comic book titled Jersey Devil, created by Tony DiGerolamo in the early 1990s featuring the Devil as a Crow-like anti-hero.
  • The Devil is a prisoner of the Golden Boughs Retirement Community in the Vertigo comic book series Jack of Fables.
  • The short story, The Barrens by F. Paul Wilson deals with two people who go into the Pine Barrens to look for the Jersey Devil. However, it turns out that the leader is not in fact looking for the devil at all, but for something far more sinister.

Sources

  • 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 0-975441-92-2
  • A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America, by Donald Culross Peattie, pp. 20 – 23.
  • The Tracker, by Tom Brown, Jr.

See also

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