The Urban Myth Of The Jersey Devil Inspires Real Fear

Wikimedia CommonsA 1909 illustration of the Jersey Devil as published in the Philadelphia Post.

New Jersey is home to far more frightening elements than its record number of shopping malls, including a creature described as a kangaroo-like demon that was designated in 1938 as the country’s only state demon. Meet the Jersey Devil, the legend of which has kept New Jersey residents awake at night for more than 300 years.

The beast has many descriptions, ranging from a horse-faced demon with bat wings to a dog-headed entity with the talons of a dragon. As one of America’s oldest urban myths, the origins of the legend of the Jersey Devil vary. What is inarguable, however, is that the urban myth first appeared in the Jersey Pine Barrens.

Some say that the Jersey Devil, also called the Leeds Devil, dates back to 1735, when a poor woman named Mother Leeds learned that she was pregnant with her 13th child. Desperate, Mother Leeds cursed the unborn child and when she gave birth nine months later, a winged creature slithered out of her body and escaped through the chimney. Some versions of the story cast Mother Leeds as a witch who was impregnated by the devil on purpose.

Early versions of this urban myth describe the Jersey Devil swooping across the land, killing local children. The myth only grew stronger over time and even Emperor Napoleon’s older brother Joseph once reported a sighting in New Jersey in 1820.

Wikimedia CommonsThe Leeds house, pictured here, is said to be home to one of the Jersey Devil’s origin stories.

Then, in 1840, the mysterious killing of numerous livestock were attributed to the elusive beast. Newspapers around New Jersey began reporting on a plethora of sightings in 1909, when people saw mysterious footprints on the ground, strange shadows that fell across their windows, and unidentified and decomposed carcasses in the woods. Terrified citizens closed schools and work for a week in January of that year and the “Jersey Devil” became the creature’s official name.

From a Greenwich, New Jersey farmer who shot at a mysterious creature matching the Jersey Devil’s description in 1925 to a group of Gibbston boys spotting the beast in the woods in 1951, it seemed as though the entity has survived for centuries.

And the 1960 reward of $10,000 on behalf of Camden merchants for anyone managing to capture the beast has yet to be claimed.

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