Danielle Cannova's List: MythBusters

• Legend has it that in 1735, a Pines resident known as Mother Leeds found herself pregnant for the thirteenth time.
• Reaching the point of absolute exasperation upon learning of her thirteenth child, she raised her hands to the heavens and proclaimed “Let this one be a devil!”
• By all accounts the birth went routinely, and the thirteenth Leeds child was a seemingly normal baby boy.
• Within minutes however, Mother Leeds’s unholy wish of months before began to come to fruition. The baby started to change, and metamorphosed right before her very eyes. Within moments it transformed from a beautiful newborn baby into a hideous creature unlike anything the world had ever seen. The wailing infant began growing at an incredible rate. It sprouted horns from the top of its head and talon-like claws tore through the tips of its fingers. Leathery bat-like wings unfurled from its back, and hair and feathers sprouted all over the child’s body. Its eyes began glowing bright red as they grew larger in the monster’s gnarled and snarling face. The creature savagely attacked its own mother, killing her, then turned its attention to the rest of the horrified onlookers who witnessed its tempestuous transformation. It flew at them, clawing and biting, voicing unearthly shrieks the entire time. It tore the midwives limb from limb, maiming some and killing others
• In 18th and 19th centuries the Jersey Devil was spotted sporadically throughout the Pine Barrens region, frightening local residents and any of those brave enough to traverse the vast undeveloped expanses of New Jersey’s southern reaches. Unearthly wails were often reported emanating from the dark forests and swampy bogs, and the slaughter of domesticated animals would invariably be attributed to the Phantom of the Pines. Over the years the legend of the Leeds Devil grew, occasionally even overstepping the boundaries of its rural Pine Barrens haunt to terrorize local towns and cities.
• The most infamous of these incidents occurred during the week of January 16 through 23, 1909. Early in the week reports starting emerging from all across the Delaware Valley that strange tracks were being found in the snow. The mysterious footprints went over and under fences, through fields and backyards, and across the rooftops of houses. They were even reported in the large cities of Camden and Philadelphia
• Schools closed or suffered low attendance throughout lower NJ and in Philadelphia. Mills in the Pine Barrens were forced to close when workers refused to leave their homes and travel through the woods to get to their jobs.
• Eyewitnesses spotted the beast in Camden and in Bristol, Pennsylvania, and in both cities police fired on it but did not manage to bring it down.
• A few days later it reappeared in Camden, attacking a late night meeting of a social club and then flying away. Earlier that day it had appeared in Haddon Heights, terrorizing a trolley car full of passengers before flying away. Witnesses claimed that it looked like a large flying kangaroo. Another trolley car-full of people saw it in Burlington when it scurried across the tracks in front of their car.  In West Collingswood it appeared on the roof of a house and was described as an ostrich-like creature. Firemen turned their hose upon it, but it attacked them and then flew away. The entire week people reported that their livestock, particularly their chickens, were being slaughtered. This was most widespread in the towns of Bridgeton and Millville.
• The marauding misanthrope reappeared later in the week in Camden, where a local woman found the beast attempting to eat her dog. She hit it with a broomstick and it flew away.
• I was completely sober and awake when I caught a glimpse of something in my rear-view mirror. Curious as to what it could have been, I slowed down to take a gander. It was dark out, but moon lit enough that I had no trouble at all discerning the upright figure of a creature crossing the road from one side to the other roughly twenty five feet behind my car. The figure stood taller than a man by far, and had thick haunches (similar to a goat’s) supporting its nearly human looking torso and huge wooly head. It moved heavily and didn’t seem at all disturbed by my being there.
• Each time I went on this trip, my canoe was followed by a heavy-footed “thing.” With each step I heard branches snap under its feet (hooves?).  Every ten minutes or so I could hear deep beastly growls that to this very day give me the creeps. Being in a canoe and on a class trip didn’t afford me much opportunity to flee in terror, so I stuck it out–for three years. Every year it was the same.
• During my sophomore year I was pretty confident about my canoeing skills, so I didn’t look

  over my shoulder much. I went canoeing with a friend of mine when we came across a bag that had been torn open and gone through. Around it were prints on the ground that looked something like a horse’s hoof, only bigger. Then I heard it, the cry that still haunts my dreams: part human, part beast, and full of anger, pregnant with pure hate. I nearly flipped the canoe! We left, leaving whatever it was out there behind–or so I thought.
• As we were leaving, I rested my head on the window and saw a little cottage. I looked at it until the bus was about to pass it and saw a woman. She looked back at me, and I could see her skin was torn and bleeding. After the bus passed, she vanished. Scared me so badly I wouldn’t go into the woods for a year. 
• Let me tell you of a sighting of the Jersey Devil. I was driving up Route 9 in Bayville at around 10:00pm.

• There were two cars in front of me and we were traveling about 35 mph. To the right of Route 9 is a mini-mall type building with woods behind it. To the right is all woods. All of a sudden I saw this BIG thing running across Rt. 9! It looked like one of the classic pictures of the Jersey Devil. It had no tail, no fur, its ribs showed, and it had a long odd head with short ears that laid flat. It looked almost 10 feet tall! I noticed it because the first car stepped on its brakes, as did the second car. When I looked ahead I saw this thing galloping across Rt. 9 and straight into the woods. I was not really scared because it did not register yet. I stopped to mail something in the mailbox, about 300 feet from the main road, and I saw a child’s shirt, shorts and one sneaker lying on the ground! I mailed my letter, ran into my car and laid rubber all the way home!

   

  I was certain that I had seen the Jersey Devil. No one believes me. They say it was a deer. I have never seen a “deer” that big, that fast, or that weird looking in my life. What is really creepy is that the other two people driving in front of me stepped on their brakes, so they must have seen it too.  –Sonny Z.

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• The sound of thunder reverberated across the night sky as Mrs. Leeds prepared to give birth. Perhaps because of the bad weather, or perhaps because of the rumors they had all heard, the old women of the community of Burlington in New Jersey's Pine Barrens were uneasy as they assisted Mrs. Leeds in bringing into the world her thirteenth child. Some believed the expectant mother had engaged in sorcery; others had heard Mrs. Leeds exclaim, upon discovering her latest pregnancy, "Lord, I hope this one's not a child. Let this one be a devil!"
• Thus, according to legend, was born the Leeds Devil, now more popularly known as the Jersey Devil. Since its reputed birth in 1735, the creature has periodically terrorized and confounded residents who live in or near the Pine Barrens, the massive region of pine, oak, and cedar forest that is still the dominant feature of the landscape of southern Jersey.
• Interestingly, however, in recent times the Jersey Devil has made a transformation almost as dramatic as the one described in legends of his birth. Now, it seems, the Jersey Devil has become a cultural symbol, uniting residents of a state maligned as a cultural backwater and ridiculed in regional humor. They have also traditionally harbored an inferiority complex toward their metropolitan neighbors to the north and wes
• It is easy to see why the Pine Barrens, still largely undeveloped, would be the birthplace of the Jersey Devil. According to James McCloy and Ray Miller, authors of The Jersey Devil, it remains possible to travel great distances in the forest without encountering civilization. The stunted trees that proliferate in some areas of the barrens create a "landscape so odd that thoughts of the supernatural almost invariably come to the mind of someone standing there."

• According to Rutgers University folklorist Angus Gillespie, the first known written account of the Jersey Devil comes from the 1790 diary of a woodsman named Vance Larner:

    

  It was neither beast, nor man, nor spirit, but a hellish brew of all three. It was beside a pond when I came upon it. I stopped and did not move. Nay, I could not move. It was dashing its tail to and for in the pond and rubbing its horns against a tree trunk. It was as large as a moose with leather wings. It had cloven hooves as big around as an oak's trunk. After it was through with the tree, it yielded an awful scream as if it were a pained man, and then flew across the pond until I could see it no more.
• Thus began the incredible week of January 16-23, 1909, during which the presence of the Pine Barrens demon would be seen and felt by thousands of people across the Delaware Valley, largely around the New Jersey and Pennsylvania suburbs of Philadelphia. The beast was reported to have attacked a dog and feasted on farmers' chickens; to have been seen by a number of people riding a trolley and to have danced on the roof of a Gloucester, New Jersey, resident's shed; and to have left its suddenly appearing, suddenly disappearing, tracks here, there, and everywhere across the snow that blanketed the area that week.

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• Most tellers of the legend of the Jersey Devil trace the devil back to Deborah Smith who emigrated from England in the 1700s to marry a  Mr. Leeds. The Leeds family lived in the area of the NJ Pine Barrens (Leeds Point, Galloway Township, Atlantic County). Mrs. Leeds  had given birth to 12 children and was about to give birth to her 13th. The story goes that Mrs. Leeds invoked the devil during a  very difficult and painful labor and that when the baby was born, it either immediately, or very soon afterwards, (depending on the  version of the story), grew into a full-grown devil and escaped from the house.
• Another version of the story says it was when Mrs. Leeds found out she was pregnant with her 13th, that she said that if she were to have  one more child, "may it be a devil"
• The best known sightings however were in January 1909 when Councilman E.P. Weeden of Trenton claimed to have been awoken by flapping wings  outside his bedroom window. The Councilman said he found cloven footprints in the snow and several other instances of similar  footprints were reported in Trenton at the time. Hundreds, if not thousands, of other people also claimed to have seen the Devil  within a week or so of the Councilman's "sighting" and news of the multiple sightings were reported in local papers. The  January 1909 sightings were not limited to New Jersey...there were reported sightings across the river in Pennsylvania and some  sightings in Delaware as well

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• Marie Castellano claims perfect eyesight and sobriety. She also claims that   she saw the Jersey Devil flying down Moss Mill Road and Route 9 Sunday night.
• "I saw a winged animal flying down the middle of the road and cling to the pole on the corner near   CVS," said Castellano. "I stopped my car in the middle of the street and reached for my cell phone to   call the police."
• "It was tall, had glowing red eyes and large black rubbery wings tucked behind its back," she said.   "It made a loud screaming sound."
• "My husband thinks I saw a deer and my headlights made its eyes turn red," she said. "I   know what I saw."

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