The Jersey Devil

1735 New Jersey, a woman by the name of Mrs. Leeds is pregnant with her 13th child. She isn't happy with the pregnancy and screams, "the devil can take the next one!" The devil did. The child was born deformed and misshapen, but shortly after birth the child took to flight and flew out of the chimney.

The New Jersey Pine Barrens became the home of the Jersey Devil. The creature terrorized residents until finally in 1740, residents asked a minister to do something. He performed an exorcism that was supposed to last 100 years. However, in 1800, Commodore Stephen Decauter was visiting the Hanover Iron Works in the Pine Barren testing their cannonballs. While on the firing range, he saw a large creature flying over the trees. He fired at it. Some claim the cannonball hit the creature, either way, the creature continued on its course unphased. Several years later, Joseph Bonaparte the former king of Spain and brother to Napoleon, spotted the Devil while on a hunting expedition in the Barrens.

In 1909, the sighting of the Jersey Devil increased. Thousands of people claimed to have seen the creature. The witnesses were respected and trusted members of the community. The beast carried off dogs, cats, small livestock and reportedly even small children. Remains were found of the animals, however, no remains of the children were ever found. The residents were so terrorized that the local schools were closed and people refused to leave their homes. The sightings dropped off, peaking in 1927 and again in 1960. Since then there have been sporadic claims of sightings of the creature or its hoof prints.

The Jersey Devil is described as having the head of a horse, large wings and claws and a four foot serpentine body. It is said that the Devil appears as a harbinger of doom as he has been sighted pior to shipwrecks and outbreaks of war. Interestingly enough, the Jersey Devil is not the only creature that is said to roam the Pine Barrens. There is a white stag in the Pine Barrens that supposedly appears at the moment of disaster and helps those in danger. There is a story of the stag appearing and detouring an out of control stage before it could crash into a river.

Is the Jersey Devil real? Is it a figment of folklore? Perhaps the Jersey Devil and the White stag are part of a continuous reenactment of time's oldest battle: Good Vs. Evil, Light Vs. Dark.