One night in 1735 a woman cries out in the pain of childbirth, it is her 13th time suffering through this agony.  She is bitter, impoverished, and hates her husband.  She never wanted this child in the first place, and here she was giving birth to it.  Just as she gave birth to the child she cries out through a scream of agony, “I hope it’s the devil!”  She got her wish.  The newborn child was deformed.  Instead of a normal human baby, she had given birth to a creature with small, leathery wings on its back, a long, slender horse’s head, hooves, and a forked tail.  It quickly killed the midwife and flew out of the chimney.

Well, that’s at least how one of the many origin stories go for the Jersey Devil.  Some variations call for the deformed child to be locked in the cellar/attic until it escapes.  Others talk about a minister’s curse on a family that mistreated him, giving birth to a devil child, and of course there is the classic “she was a witch and it’s the devil’s child” route as well.

This is a Jersey Devil fail in accuracy, but a Jersey Devil win in other ways.

Historically, there is no record of this birth.  However we do have 2 pieces of evidence that could point to this being based around a factual account.  The first is the name.  The Jersey Devil has many names that it is referred to by, one of which is “The Leeds Devil”.  In some variations of the story the mother is part of the Leeds family and lives at Shroud’s Point.  In others her name is Shroud and she lives at Leeds Point.  Either way you twist it, there was both a Leeds and a Shroud family living in the region of the birth of the Jersey Devil at that time.

Another fact is that in 1740 a priest exorcised a demon and banished it for 100 years, yes there is an account of this, and yes he seriously only banished it for 100 years.  In that time frame though, all sightings of the Jersey Devil stopped until the mid 1800s.  This could also be where the legend of the minister cursing the family comes into play.  Maybe he wasn’t cursing them, but blessing them.

Regardless of how it came into existence, it is here, and over the past two centuries it has been spotted over more than two thousand times!  The sightings have been from all different types of people, and they all report the same findings.  Bat-like wings, horse head, hooves, tail, and it gives off a shrill cry.

One of the most famous sightings was by Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother, Joseph.  He was out on a hunting trip in New Jersey and claimed that he saw the creature.  Now this was a very well respected claim throughout the town as Joseph was the former king of Spain, a lawyer, a diplomat, and a soldier.  He was also a raging alcoholic, and that trait alone put the seed of doubt into many of the townspeople.

The Jersey Devil fell into the stuff of legends until 1909 when over one thousand sightings were held in a single week! It didn’t limit it’s exposure to drunks or drifters either.  According to records, couples out for a walk through the forest, large groups of people, priests, cops…and drunks and drifters all caught sight of the creature!

Since the 1909 sightings the Jersey Devil hasn’t shown itself much, aside from the random livestock mutilation.

So what is it about the Jersey Devil that has kept the legend alive for so long, even though the sightings have been almost nil for over one hundred years?  I mean it even has a hockey team named after it, and I can assure you they aren’t cutting the devil part of the profits.

Were all these people mistaken? Drunk? Is the entire population of New Jersey insane?

I say no.  Through a little digging I found out that New Jersey is actually a pretty big place for sandhill cranes to migrate to.  Maybe this is what people are seeing and hearing in the shadows of the forest.

Could this be your real Jersey Devil?

What do you think?