This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
For one week in January 1909, schools closed and mill workers stayed home across the Delaware Valley because of a monster. Not a rumor passed between neighbors — newspapers printed sighting reports by the dozen, posses went into the woods with shotguns, and the Philadelphia Zoo posted a $10,000 reward for the creature's capture. The thing they were hunting had already been part of South Jersey folklore for nearly two centuries: the Jersey Devil.
The Birth Story: Mother Leeds, 1735
The standard version of the legend begins in the Pine Barrens — the vast, sandy pine forest covering much of southern New Jersey — with a woman remembered as Mother Leeds. She already had twelve children. When she learned she was pregnant with a thirteenth, she is said to have cursed the child in exhaustion or anger, crying out that this one could be the devil.
The child was born on a stormy night in 1735, and by most tellings it arrived looking normal. Then it changed. Accounts describe a creature with the head of a goat, leathery bat wings, hooves, clawed hands, and a forked tail. It screamed, thrashed everyone in the room with its tail, and escaped up the chimney into the pines — where, the legend insists, it still lives.
The Leeds Family Was Real
Strip away the wings and hooves and there is a documented family underneath. Historians point to Deborah Leeds, whose husband filed a will in 1736 naming twelve children — a household of the right size, in the right place, at the right time.
The more pointed theory involves Daniel Leeds, a Quaker-turned-almanac-publisher in colonial Burlington whose writings on astrology and the occult got him denounced by his own religious community as evil. His son Titan later feuded in print with a young Benjamin Franklin, who mockingly wrote of Titan as a ghost. The Leeds family crest featured a wyvern — a two-legged, bat-winged dragon that looks uncomfortably like the monster later said to have been born into the family. Under this reading, the “Leeds Devil” started as colonial political mudslinging and only slowly turned into a campfire story.
Either way, the name stuck. The creature was called the Leeds Devil well into the 1800s before “Jersey Devil” took over.
Early Encounters
Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the creature stayed mostly local, blamed for dead livestock, strange tracks, and screams in the pines. The legend's most famous early witness was, improbably, royalty: Joseph Bonaparte, elder brother of Napoleon and former king of Spain, reportedly saw the creature while hunting on his Bordentown estate around 1820. In the 1840s, farmers across the region attributed a wave of livestock killings to the beast.
January 1909: The Week New Jersey Panicked
Then came the week that made the Jersey Devil national news. Between roughly January 16 and 23, 1909, thousands of people across South Jersey and the Philadelphia area reported encounters. It began with strange hoofprints in fresh snow — tracks that ran through backyards, stopped dead in open fields, went over fences and, witnesses swore, across rooftops.
The sightings escalated fast:
- A Woodbury man reported a winged creature whose cry he answered in the dark
- In Gloucester City, a couple watched a hissing, horse-headed thing on their shed roof for ten minutes
- A Camden trolley car full of passengers reported the creature flying alongside the line
- In West Collingswood, firemen reportedly turned their hose on it — and it charged them
- Bristol, Pennsylvania and towns in Delaware and Maryland filed their own reports as the panic spread
Schools closed. Factories and mills reported absenteeism because workers refused to walk in the dark. Armed patrols searched the pines and found nothing. The Philadelphia Zoo's $10,000 reward went unclaimed — though hoaxers tried, including showmen who painted a kangaroo, fitted it with fake wings, and exhibited it as the captured devil.
After that week, the frenzy collapsed as quickly as it started. Skeptics blamed sensational newspaper coverage, misidentified sandhill cranes, and the way hoofprints in melting snow can distort into something unrecognizable. Believers noted that trolley passengers, firemen, and police officers were among the witnesses. Neither side ever fully won the argument.
From Monster to Mascot: The NHL's Devils
By the twentieth century the creature had become New Jersey's unofficial mascot — so much so that in 1938 it was named the state's official demon, a distinction no other US state has bothered to claim. The ultimate mainstream embrace came in 1982, when the NHL's Colorado Rockies relocated to East Rutherford. The new owners ran a fan contest to name the team; more than 10,000 ballots came in, and “Devils” beat out options like Blades and Meadowlanders. The franchise has skated under the Pine Barrens monster's name ever since, with three Stanley Cups to show for it.
Sighting reports still trickle in from the Pine Barrens, and the creature anchors everything from local breweries to paranormal TV episodes. Not bad for a thirteenth child nobody wanted.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Jersey Devil based on a real family?
Yes — the Leeds family was real. A 1736 will names twelve Leeds children in the Pine Barrens region, and the earlier Leeds family of publishers feuded publicly with Benjamin Franklin. Many historians trace the legend to attacks on the family's reputation, later reshaped into the Mother Leeds birth story.
What happened during the 1909 Jersey Devil sightings?
During the week of January 16–23, 1909, thousands of people across the Delaware Valley reported strange hoofprints and encounters with a winged creature. Schools and workplaces closed, armed groups searched the pines, and the Philadelphia Zoo offered a $10,000 reward that was never claimed.
What does the Jersey Devil look like?
Classic descriptions combine a goat- or horse-like head, leathery bat wings, hooves, clawed hands, a forked tail, and a piercing scream. Height estimates in reports range from about three feet to over six feet.
Why is the NHL team called the New Jersey Devils?
When the Colorado Rockies moved to New Jersey in 1982, the owners held a fan naming contest. “Devils” — a nod to the Pine Barrens legend — won with about 2,400 of more than 10,000 ballots, beating runner-up “Blades.”
Learn More
As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases.
Comments