The Jersey Devil is not to be confused with the New Jersey Devil’s hockey team, but the legendary creature that has haunted the Jersey area for nearly 260 years. Almost 2,000 witnesses have claimed to have encountered the creature over time. This mythical beast originated from folklore in the Pine Barrens area of New Jersey, though, there are many versions of the lore, they all seem to describe the same monster…
One of the first tales I encountered talked about a woman named Jane Leed, also called Mother Leeds. She resided in Pine Barrens, New Jersey, and was overwhelmed by her existing 12 children. She became angry upon learning of a 13th pregnancy. She cursed her pregnant belly wishing this next child would be a devil. One dark and stormy night, the child was born and immediately morphed into a creature with a goat’s head, bat wings, and hoofs, it screamed and killed the midwife that had performed the birth and all others in the room, then flew out the chimney, never to be seen again… In 1740, it was reported that a local clergyman exorcised the demon and banished it for 100 years.
While that myth was all fantasy, some small facts within it create an even larger story. A story that involves Benjamin Franklin and one of the earliest known political feuds…
It all starts with Daniel Leeds, who comes to America in 1677 and settles. Daniel was a Quaker and a very prominent individual in the area. Though when Daniel publishes an Almanac containing references to astrology his congregation ridicules him and destroys the Almanac. Quakers followed Christian beliefs and denounced anything that the pagans believed in. Quakers refused to use the names of the days of the week, Sunday, Monday, etc., because they believed it to be a pagan tradition. And Quakers never celebrated Christmas as they once again believed it to be a Pagan tradition.
Daniel continued to publish his work and went on to write a satirical series based on the Quakers, further fueling the fire. Daniel Leeds furthered his knowledge in Christian occultism, which eventually led the Quakers to deem Daniel Leeds as Satan.
When Daniel Leeds’ son, Titan, takes over the Almanac in 1713, he becomes entangled in a feud of his own, with none other than Benjamin Franklin. Franklin and Leeds spiral into a long-running feud, leaving the Leeds family with the title, “Political & Religious Monsters”.
Titan Leeds and his Almanac would now have to compete against Franklin’s Almanac. Leeds continued the use of astrology in his almanac, which Franklin found quite funny, and began using a bit of satirical astrology in his almanac poking fun at Leeds and implying that astrology had predicted Leed’s death. Titan Leeds was outraged and called Franklin a ‘fool’ and a ‘liar’, and was alive to do so, but this just humored Benjamin Franklin and he began calling Leeds a ‘ghost’ and mockingly implied that Leeds was dead and writing his almanac from the grave. Franklin even had an obituary printed for Titan Leeds, though he was very much still alive.
While that played out over the years, in 1728, Titan Leeds began to publish his almanac with his family’s crest. The creature on the crest was said to be a wyvern. A wyvern is described usually as a winged serpentine creature with legs, claws, and no arms. It looks a bit like a bat crossed with a dragon.
Benjamin Franklin was determined to make his almanac titled, Poor Richard’s almanac, famous. Franklin wrote the almanac under the pseudonym, Richard Saunders or at times just, Poor Richard. He Continuously stated that Leeds was dead and must have been resurrected
from the dead to write his almanac Hoping that this would shed poor light on Titan Leed’s almanac titled, The American Almanac. Titan Leeds passed away in 1738. It’s a belief that the tale of the Jersey devil was created throughout the feud between Leeds and Franklin.
The birth of the Jersey devil myth may lie in the combination of Daniel Leed’s wife birthing many mentally disabled children, his belief in Christian occultism and astrology and later his son Titan adding a wyvern to the family crest.
Could this be what created the legendary creature… The sightings of the Jersey Devil often resemble the description of the Wyvern on the family crest.
The lore eventually faded but never completely. In current times, we see ghost hunting programs searching for the Jersey Devil and hockey teams using the name and in 2018, an entire festival was created, named the Jersey Devil Festival, it was located in Asbury, New Jersey.
Though some do believe there is an actual creature, including the fifth president of the United States, James Monroe. President Monroe sent famed war hero, Commodore Stephen Decatur, to the Hanover Mill which is located in Pine Barrens. He was sent to inspect the quality of the cannon balls that were being forged. During his visit, he reportedly saw a creature flying around that matched the Jersey Devil. Stephen Decatur claimed he had to fire some of the cannonballs at the creature.
We may never truly know if there is a winged creature flying around New Jersey or whether this is a true hoax created and fueled by political rivals. All we do know is that this tale has been around before the Civil War even began. We will just leave this one to the Unexplained Realms…
I know… You all wanted the winged creature to be real, me too… So many skeptics have debunked the whole cryptid theory behind the Jersey Devil and it’s a very good possibility this was just a bit of political mudslinging.
In 1909 Norman Jeffries purchased a kangaroo with the help of his friend Jacob Hope. They attached fake claws and wings to the animal and submitted fake stories of sightings in the area. This caused the Philadelphia Zoo to offer the public a $10,000 reward for its capture. Norman and Jacob then publicly announced that they had caught the Jersey Devil. It was displayed in a museum. After 20 years had gone by, Jeffries admitted it was a hoax.
