The Jersey Devil
In the northeast United States, there is a folklore creature that scared the living shit out of me when I was a child. I first read about this demon spawn in a cryptozoology book for kids, and as an adult, I wonder why this story was included in a children’s book because it is unhinged.
The story goes that in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey during the Colonial era of the US (1735, according to the legend), a woman now known as “Mother Leeds” was pregnant for the thirteenth time and cursed the child, saying that it would be the devil. She was generally ungrateful about the whole situation. Some versions of the myth say that the mother was a witch, but either way, she gave birth on a dark and stormy night. Soon after the child was born, it transformed into a demon with bat wings, horse hooves, a tail, and a goat head. This devil escaped the home through the chimney and ended up terrorizing the entire region.
Over the years, the creature’s high-pitched, creepy yelp has allegedly been heard across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Some believe a woman named Deborah Leeds was the origin of the story because in 1736 there was a will from her husband, Japhet, who listed twelve children. They also lived in Leeds Point, where some versions of the story may have originated.
Brian Regal, a historian at Kean University in New Jersey, believes that “Mother Leeds” comes from a local family called the Leeds, whose political and religious disputes were the cause of gossip and tall tales. Someone like Daniel Leeds could fit this description since in the late 1600s he would publish almanacs with astrological and pagan symbols and writings, which the Quaker community hated and destroyed. Daniel also had nine children and was ostracized by the community. However, once the community turned on him, he clearly said “fuck you” because he began to double down on mysticism, demonology, occultism, and esoteric knowledge. He then became hyper-anti-Quaker, and the Quakers publicly accused Daniel of working with the devil.
In 1728, the Leeds family added a wyvern to their family crest. A wyvern is essentially a dragon with giant bat wings, hooves, or claws. Titan, one of Daniel’s sons, eventually took over the almanac business and had a fierce rivalry with Benjamin Franklin until he died in 1738. By 1859, it was already a popular regional folktale, and sightings appeared sporadically over the next two centuries. Tons of rewards over the years have been posted for the capture of the creature, but nothing has ever come up. Even though this story is most definitely fiction, it’s a good one to scare kids with.
