Myths and legends are associated with many areas. For New Jersey there’s the Jersey Devil. The people in the area are proud of it rather than afraid. The local hockey team is even named for this cryptic creature.

Sometimes it’s called the Leeds Devil, and goes back to the Native Americans. The Indian name for the area was Place of the Dragon, and Swedish explorers later named it Drake Kill. However, a 1735 story is what most people in New Jersey believed to be the origins of this beast. A woman called Mother Leeds claimed her husband was the devil, and gave birth to 12 children. Her 13th child, she said, would be a devil. That 13th child was born a normal baby, but quickly changed form. It developed hooves and wings, attacked the midwife, then escaped through the chimney. Five years later a priest exercised the demon, and so the creature was not seen for another hundred years.

A woman named Deborah Leeds could be this Mother Leeds. Her husband listed 12 children in his will. That meshes with the story that the 13th child was the devil. Some people, however, think it’s all a tall tale. People who didn’t want to be found escaped to the Pine Barrens. They gathered in groups called pineys. They eventually became the pine robbers, plain bandits. It was natural to imagine beasts and demons arising from this area. The bandits weren’t nice people.

The Jersey Devil can even be a funny story. Tom Brown Jr. often spent time in the wilderness. People who met him thought they had seen the Jersey Devil. He used a complete body mud covering to keep mosquitoes off himself. Seems like the mud worked better to repel people than bugs.

It could be that the Jersey Devil is something out of nature. It could be a creature with wings and hooves. Others hold that it is the sand hill crane, a native bird with a 7 foot wingspan.

Jersey Devil

Whatever it is the Jersey Devil remains an integral part of the New Jersey mythology. Have some fun in New Jersey by hunting for it.