The Jersey Devil has become a famous icon in leagues in Leeds Point New Jersey. In fact New Jersey’s hockey team in the NHL is named for this legendary creature. Many people have had run ins with it.
The first American war hero who didn’t serve in the Revolution was Commodore Stephen Decatur. In other words he was well respected. He died in 1820 from wounds suffered during a duel. He left his wife $75,000, which was over $1 million in current money. His run in with the Jersey Devil involves his firing a cannonball at the creature. Supposedly it blew a hole in the creature. Supposedly the creature wasn’t even fazed by this. It casually left the scene.
Another famous person, Joseph Bonaparte who was Napoleon’s brother, saw the Jersey Devil. He had settled in America and 1000 acres in the New Jersey area. He had formerly been king of Spain. He wasn’t a crazy man.
The 1800′s saw the Jersey Devil raid man people’s property. It took people’s livestock. This included a raid on Vincentown in 1899. Many people there reported many missing animals. There were thousands of sightings in 1909. This happened all around the Delaware Valley.
Panic ensued in Burlington when footprints belonging to the Jersey Devil were found in backyards and on rooftops covered with snow. These were not normal human footprints. They looked like animal prints – hooves. At the same time Jacksonville hunters organized a search party to capture or kill the beast. But their hunting dogs, upon seeing and sniffing the footprints became so agitated that they would not follow them. A Glaucester city man claimed to have seen it walking around on his roof for about 10 minutes. He said it had a horse face and was about 3.5 feet high.
There was a claim by a telephone lineman that the Jersey Devil attacked him . The man escaped up the telephone pole. A coworker chased it away by shooting it in the wing. How did a bullet hurt it when a cannonball couldn’t?
It’s likely that the Jersey Devil is nothing more than a series of different animals seen in the dark or under the influence of alcohol, combined with a vivid imagination. But the myth is fun.
