ON AIRTerminal of Terror

🐴 The Jersey Devil

A winged, hoofed, horse-headed fiend said to haunt the Pine Barrens of New Jersey

Also known as Jersey Devil, Leeds Devil

📺 "Tonight's guest was the thirteenth child, and you know how that goes. Hooves, wings, a horse's head: Mother Leeds really should have been more careful what she wished for."

💀 Facts

  • Legend says it was born to Mother Leeds in 1735 as her thirteenth child
  • It was first known as the Leeds Devil, after an almanac-making family of the Pine Barrens
  • Historian Brian Regal links the tale to the Leeds family crest, which shows dragon-like wyverns
  • In January 1909 hundreds of sightings across the Delaware Valley closed schools and mills
  • The Philadelphia Zoo offered a reward for its capture in 1909
  • A 'captured' Devil shown in Philadelphia in 1909 was a kangaroo with painted stripes and false wings
  • New Jersey's NHL team took its name from the creature after a fan vote in 1982

📜 Legend

The story goes that in 1735 a Pine Barrens woman called Mother Leeds, expecting her thirteenth child, cried that it might as well be the devil, and on a stormy night it was born with hooves, bat wings, a horse's head and a forked tail, and flew up the chimney. Historian Brian Regal traces the tale to a real family: Daniel Leeds, an almanac-maker whose astrology scandalised his Quaker neighbours, and whose son Titan put the family crest, with its dragon-like wyverns, on his almanac covers during a feud with Benjamin Franklin. The 'Leeds Devil' became the Jersey Devil during the panic of January 1909, when, over about a week, hundreds of people from Camden to Philadelphia reported strange tracks in the snow, screams in the night and glimpses of a flying thing. Schools and mills closed, posses went out, and the Philadelphia Zoo offered a reward. Publicist Norman Jeffries then exhibited a 'captured' Devil at Philadelphia's Arch Street Museum: a kangaroo with painted stripes and false wings, as he admitted twenty years later. Older stories claim Commodore Stephen Decatur fired a cannonball at it and that Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, met it while hunting near Bordentown, though neither can be checked. Folklorists see a colonial feud that grew wings.

🎭 Myth vs Movie

True or false? Make your guess, then click a card (or press r) for the verdict.

  • The legend says the Devil was Mother Leeds' thirteenth child.

    ✔ TRUE

    She is said to have cursed the unborn child, and it arrived in 1735 with hooves, wings and a horse's head before flying up the chimney.

  • The great Jersey Devil panic happened in 1909.

    ✔ TRUE

    For about a week in January 1909 sightings poured in from across the Delaware Valley, and some schools and mills closed.

  • A real Jersey Devil was captured and put on show in Philadelphia in 1909.

    ✘ FALSE

    Publicist Norman Jeffries exhibited a kangaroo with painted stripes and false wings at the Arch Street Museum, and admitted the hoax in 1929.

  • The creature was originally called the Leeds Devil.

    ✔ TRUE

    The older name points to the Leeds family of almanac-makers; 'Jersey Devil' took over around the time of the 1909 panic.

  • New Jersey's NHL team is named after it.

    ✔ TRUE

    When the franchise moved to New Jersey in 1982, fans voted to call it the Devils.

🃏 Stat Card

Strength
6
Speed
8
Cunning
5
Dread
8

⚡ Powers

  • Flight on leathery wings
  • A scream that empties a town
  • Leaving cloven tracks across rooftops and snow
  • Surviving cannon fire, so the story goes

🧄 Weaknesses

  • Chimneys, apparently
  • Publicists with a kangaroo
  • Daylight
  • Historians with old almanacs

Stats power the Monster Mash: terminal-of-terror mash jersey-devil

🎞️ Legacy

  • The NHL's New Jersey Devils, named by a fan vote in 1982
  • The X-Files episode 'The Jersey Devil' (1993)
  • The found-footage film The Last Broadcast (1998)
  • The Jersey Devil Coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure (2021)

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