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Jersey Devil - Mythical Creatures Guide


The most accepted origin of the story as far as New Jerseyians are concerned started with Mother Leeds and is as follows: It was said that Mother Leeds had 12 children and after giving birth to her 12th child she stated that if she had another it would be the Devil. In 1735, Mother Leeds was in labor on a stormy night. Gathered around her were her friends. Mother Leeds was supposedly a witch and the child's father was the Devil himself. The child was born normal, but then changed form. It changed from a normal baby to a creature with hooves, a horse's head, bat wings and a forked tail. It growled and screamed, then killed the midwife before flying up the chimney. It circled the villages and headed toward the pines. In 1740, a clergy exorcised the demon for 100 years and it wasn't seen again until 1890. Reportedly in 1778, Commodore Stephen Decatur visited the Hanover Iron Works in the Barrens to test cannonballs at a firing range, where he allegedly witnessed a strange, pale white creature winging overhead. Using cannon fire, Decatur purportedly punctured the wing membrane of the creature, which continued flying – apparently unfazed – to the amazement of onlookers. The Jersey Devil is considered a nuetral creature.

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UPDATE!! I am only updating information, I do not wish to delete what has been stated, only update
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There are many possible origins of the Jersey Devil legend. The earliest legends date back to Native American folklore. The Lenni Lenape tribes called the area around Pine Barrens "Popuessing", meaning "place of the dragon". Swedish explorers later named it "Drake Kill", "drake" being a word for dragon, and "kill" meaning channel or arm of the sea (river, stream, etc.) in Dutch.

"Mother Leeds" has been identified by some as Deborah Leeds. This identification may have gained credence from the fact that Deborah Leeds' husband, Japhet Leeds, named twelve children in the will he wrote in 1736, which is compatible with the legend of the Jersey Devil being the thirteenth child born by Mother Leeds. Deborah and Japhet Leeds also lived in the Leeds Point section of what is now Atlantic County, New Jersey, which is the area commonly said to be the location of the Jersey Devil story.

Reported encounters go back as far as 1820. Joseph Bonaparte said to have witnessed the creature while hunting on his Borden town estate around 1820. In 1840 the devil was blamed for several livestock killings. Similar attacks were reported in 1841 accompanied by tracks and creams.

Claims of a corpse matching the Leeds Devil's description arose in Greenwich in December 1925. A local farmer shot an unidentified animal as it attempted to steal his chickens. Afterwards he claimed that none of a hundred people he showed it too could identify it. Reports of such an animal go all the way up into the 60's where tracks and noises were heard near Mays Landing were claimed to be from the Jersey Devil. During the same year the merchants around Camden offered a $10,000 reward for the capture of the Jersey Devil. They even offered to build a private zoo to house the creature if captured.

While scientists state that such a creature is highly unlikely they quickly put this creature often as a hoax made of terrified peoples nightmares. One writer of Bogeyman stories would tell children stories as a form of entertainment. Rumors and negative perceptions began to arise. According to Brian Dunning or Skeptoid, Folk tales of the Jersey Devil prior to 1909 calling it the "Leeds Devil" may have been created to discredit local politician Daniel Leeds who served as deputy to the colonial governor of New York and New Jersey in the 1700s. Outdoorsman and author Tom Brown, Jr. spent several seasons living in the wilderness of the Pine Barrens. He recounts occasions when terrified hikers mistook him for the Jersey Devil, after he covered his whole body with mud to repel mosquitoes.


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Latest page update: made by Uranicus_Angelus , Mar 29 2014, 8:47 PM EDT (about this update About This Update Uranicus_Angelus Edited by Uranicus_Angelus

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