The most popular monster in New Jersey lore, the Jersey Devil’s story begins sometime in the early part of the eighteenth century in a forest called the Pine Barrens. A woman known as Mother Leeds gave birth to her thirteenth child and cried out, “Oh, let this one be a devil!” The child arrived with horse-like head and bat-like wings. It yelped menacingly and then flew up and out the chimney, disappearing into the dark to spend centuries assaulting anyone unfortunate enough to encounter it. Curiously, the figure of the Jersey Devil was born out of colonial-era political intrigues, which included religious infighting among Quakers, almanac publishing, a cross-dressing royal governor, and Benjamin Franklin.
The Leeds family occupies the center of the story, but they were not the stereotypical superstitious rural people of popular culture. They were politically connected religious pioneers, authors, and publishers. The family patriarch, Daniel Leeds, came to America in 1677 and settled in Burlington. He began his publishing career in 1687 with an almanac. The astrological data in his almanac caused several members of the Quaker Meeting to complain that he had used inappropriate language and symbols. The notion of predicting the movements of the heavens did not sit well with Quaker theology. Leeds went to the next meeting and publicly apologized. Despite his efforts, an order was sent out to collect all the copies of the almanac not in circulation and destroy them.
Disillusioned by his treatment, he satirized the Quakers in a series of pamphlets, working with the prominent publisher William Bradford. His work constitutes the earliest known printing in colonial New Jersey, and some of the earliest political criticism in the region. His accusations of Quaker misdeeds so outraged the Quaker authorities that they also called Leeds “Satan’s Harbinger.” At the same time, Leeds supported the first royal governor of New Jersey, the infamous Lord Cornbury, a man accused of being a degenerate cross-dresser. These slanders gained a wide hearing among colonists who opposed the royal authority in British America.
The Jersey Devil, the resident legendary cryptid of the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. According to local lore, this creature has haunted this wilderness area of southern New Jersey for nearly 250 years. Depicted in this drawing by Linda Reddington of Manahawkin, New Jersey, a writer and artist who has studied the regional legend extensively, the Jersey Devil is often described as having the head of a horse and the wings of a bat. (Bettmann/Corbis)
After these incidents Leeds published The Temple of Wisdom (1688) in which he laid out his view of the universe, calling upon the work of German Pietist Jacob Boehme and English Enlightenment author Francis Bacon. This book was also censured by the Quaker officials. Taken together, his published writings might be thought of as the work of a Christian occultist. In his view, astrology could be used to gain deeper insights into the workings of God and the meaning of Christianity. However, the readers of his work would have been unfamiliar with the esoteric nature of his writings, and might have concluded that his beliefs were outside the acceptable boundaries of Christian doctrine. Openly at odds with Quaker leaders, Leeds produced an outright anti-Quaker tract, The Trumpet Sounded Out of the Wilderness of America (1699). In this book, Leeds argued that Quaker theology denied the divinity of Christ and he accused Quakers of being antimonarchists.
Eventually, Daniel’s son Titan Leeds (1699–1738) took over running the almanac and eventually became associated with Benjamin Franklin. Franklin wanted to make a name for himself as a publisher. As a publicity stunt, Franklin—in the guise of “Poor Richard” Saunders—claimed that astrological calculations showed Titan Leeds would die in 1733. When the prediction failed, Leeds called Franklin a fool and a liar. Franklin claimed that since Titan Leeds had died, his ghost was walking about and attacking him. Leeds tried to defend himself, but Franklin argued that Leeds had been resurrected from the dead. Franklin’s ruse drew a popular following, and Poor Richard’s Almanac became famous while the pioneering Leeds Almanac disappeared.
As revolutionary fervor grew in the mid-eighteenth century, many colonists expressed a profound anti-British sentiment, and the Leeds family made an easy target. By the time of the Revolution, the “Leeds Devil” stood as a symbol of political ridicule and scorn. After the Revolution, the legend of the Leeds Devil drifted into obscurity until the early twentieth century when a Philadelphia public relations professional named Norman Jeffries revived it to promote the Ninth and Arch Street Dime Museum. The Leeds Devil became the “Jersey Devil” and in the popular mind, the old colonial political drama gave way to a legend of monstrous births and forest dragons. This legend claims twentieth-century sightings of a flying creature with red eyes that steals livestock and leaves mysterious footprints. The legend is so embedded in New Jersey culture that in 1982, the NHL Colorado Rockies relocated to New Jersey and hockey fans voted to rename the team the New Jersey Devils.
Brian Regal
See also Boogie Man; Demonic Possession; Dwayyo; Fakelore; Pine Barrens Tales; Pope Lick Monster
Further Reading
Brunvand, Jan Harold, ed. 1996. American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing.
McCloy, James F., and Ray Miller, Jr. 1976. The Jersey Devil. Moorestown, NJ: Middle Atlantic Press.
McNab, Chris. 2007. Mythical Monsters: The Scariest Creatures from Legends, Books, and Movies. New York: Scholastic.
Moran, Mark, and Mark Sceurman. 2004. Weird N.J.: Your Travel Guide to New Jersey’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets. New York: Barnes & Noble.
Jersey Devil—Primary Document
Jersey Devil (Since Eighteenth Century)
Along with Bigfoot, Chessie, Ogopogo, and the Mogollon Monster, the Jersey Devil is one of the most famous North American cryptids. An allegedly dragon-like creature with a “snake-like body, a horse’s head, a pig’s feet, and a bat’s wings,” the Jersey Devil is the most easily refuted of these mythological creatures. Nineteenth-century stories referred to the animal as the “Leeds Devil,” named after the infamous Mother Leeds who was accused of witchcraft during the colonial period. The Leeds family played a colorful role in New Jersey history. They were staunchly anti-Quaker and British loyalists during the American Revolution. Titan Leeds and Benjamin Franklin were printing rivals, as shown in this excerpt from Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack. From a political caricature to a mythological creature, the Jersey Devil is an extraordinary illustration of how much folklore can evolve over centuries.
Poor Richard’s Almanack (1733)
Indeed this Motive would have had Force enough to have made me publish an Almanack many Years since, had it not been overpower’d by my Regard for my good Friend and Fellow-Student, Mr. Titan Leeds, whose Interest I was extreamly unwilling to hurt: But this Obstacle (I am far from speaking it with Pleasure) is soon to be removed, since inexorable Death, who was never known to respect Merit, has already prepared the mortal Dart, the fatal Sister has already extended her destroying Shears, and that ingenious Man must soon be taken from us. He dies, by my Calculation made at his Request, on Oct. 17. 1733. 3 ho. 29 min. P.M. at the very instant of the xxx of xxx and xxx: By his own Calculation he will survive till the 26th of the same Month. This small difference between us we have disputed whenever we have met these 9 Years past; but at length he is inclinable to agree with my Judgment; Which of us is most exact, a little Time will now determine. As therefore these Provinces may not longer expect to see any of his Performances after this Year, I think my self free to take up the Task, and request a share of the publick Encouragement; which I am the more apt to hope for on this Account, that the Buyer of my Almanack may consider himself, not only as purchasing an useful Utensil, but as performing an Act of Charity, to his poor Friend and Servant.
The Leeds Devil (1903)
Within recent times the Leeds Devil has ramped about the New Jersey pine region, between Freehold and Cape May, though it should have been “laid” many years ago. Its coming portends evil, for it appears before wars, fires, and great calamities.
Albeit a sober Quaker in appearance, Mother Leeds, of Burlington, New Jersey, was strongly suspected of witchcraft; and suspicion became certainty when, in 1735, a child was born to her. The old women who had assembled on that occasion, as they always do assemble wherever there is death or birth or marriage, reported that while it was like other human creatures at first, the child changed, under their very eyes. It began to lose its likeness to other babes, and grew long and brown; it presently took the shape of a dragon, with a snake-like body, a horse’s head, a pig’s feet, and a bat’s wings. This dreadful being increased in strength as it gained in size, until it exceeded the bulk and might of a grown man, when it fell on the assemblage, beating all the members of the party, even its own mother, with its long forked, leathery tail. This despite being wreaked, it arose through the chimney and vanished, its harsh cries mingling with the clamor of a storm raging out-of-doors.
That night several children disappeared: the dragon had eaten them. For several years thereafter it was glimpsed in the woods at nightfall, and it would wing its way heavily from farm to farm, though it seldom did much mischief after its first escape into the world. To sour the milk by breathing on it, to dry the cows, and to sear the corn were its usual errands. On a still night the farmers could follow its course, as they did with trembling, by the howling of dogs, the hoots of owls, and the squawks of poultry. It sometimes appeared on the coast, generally when a wreck impended, and was seen in the company of the specters that haunt the shore: the golden-haired woman in white, the black-muzzled pirate, and the robber, whose head being cut off at Barnegat by Captain Kidd, stumps about the sands without it, guarding a treasure buried near. When it needed a change of diet the Leeds Devil would breathe upon the cedar swamps, and straightway the fish would die in the pools and creeks, their bodies, whitened and decayed by the poison, floating about in such numbers as to threaten illness to all the neighborhood. In 1740 the service of a clergyman was secured, who, by reason of his piety and exemplary life, had dominion over many of the fiends that plagued New Jersey, and had even prevailed in his congregation against applejack, which some declared to be a worse fiend than any other, if, indeed, it did not create some of those others. With candle, book, and bell the good man banned the creature for a hundred years, and, truly, the herds and henneries were not molested in all that time. The Leeds Devil had become a dim tradition when, in 1840, it burst its cerements, if such had been put about it; or, at all events, it broke through the clergyman’s commandments, and went whiffling among the pines again, eating sheep and other animals, and making clutches at children that dared to sport about their dooryards in the twilight. From time to time it reappeared, its last raid occurring at Vincentown and Burrvillle in 1899, but it is said that its life has nearly run its course, and with the advent of the new century many worshipful commoners of Jersey dismissed, for good and all, the fear of this monster from their minds.
Sources: Poor Richard, An Almanack for the Year of Christ 1733. Philadelphia: B. Franklin, 1732. “The Leeds Devil.” Charles M. Skinner. American Myths and Legends. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1903.