The Jersey Devil: America's Oldest Monster Explained

Harini Bhat (0:00)

This is Rewind.

At 2.3 in the morning on January 19, 1909, a man named Nelson Evans woke up to noise outside his house in Gloucester City, New Jersey.

He went to the window, and standing on the roof of his shed was a strange, hoofed animal with the face of a horse and the wings of a bat.

He and his wife watched it for 10 full minutes.

Then Nelson opened the window and said, Shoo!

It barked at him and flew away. You might think he just had a weird dream, but that week, hundreds of others saw it too. A police officer fired his revolver at it, a trolley full of passengers watched it circle their car, schools closed in terror, and today, over 100 years later, people are still seeing the creature known as the Jersey Devil.

I'm Dr. Harini Bhat, and this is Hidden History of Rewind Original, powered by PAVE Studios. On this show, we're exploring some of the most mysterious events from history that have yet to be fully explained and examining all the different theories from science to the supernatural and everything in between.

From vanishing civilizations and doomsday prophecies to paranormal experiences and unexplained phenomena, I'm looking at it all and I want you to join me. Before we begin, I'd love it if you could rate, review and follow Hidden History. Your support allows our community to grow and for other people to discover the show. We're also on YouTube with full video that brings each episode to life. Just search at Hidden History pod and subscribe. Today's episode is about the Jersey Devil. It's America's oldest monster legend, a creature with bat wings, a horse's head and cloven hooves, said to have been born to a cursed mother in the New Jersey Pine Barrens in 1735 So what's out there? Let's talk about it.

When you picture New Jersey, you probably don't think there would be a lot of places for something like the Jersey Devil to hide. But here's the first thing from this episode that might surprise you. A ton of the state is a giant forest. They're called the Pine Barrens, and they cover about 1.1 million acres of southern New Jersey. That's 22 percent of the entire state. You could be 40 minutes from Philadelphia, turn onto a sandy road, and drive for miles without seeing a single building. The Barrens' part of the name comes from the soil, which is so sandy and acidic that the original colonists couldn't farm it. But Barren isn't the best choice of word. After all, it's still blanketed in pine trees. And under the ground, there's a giant reservoir holding around 17 trillion gallons of some of the purest water in the country. That's enough to cover the whole state, 10 feet deep. And the environment is truly something out of spooky season. The streams run the color of iced tea. There are carnivorous plants, wild orcas, and hundreds of species of birds and rare animals. And the human outposts that do exist there are appropriately naked. Suey Place, Double Trouble, Hog Wallow, Ong's Hat. So yeah, it's no surprise that the Pine Barrens birthed America's oldest cryptid.

And long before any European saw these woods, the Lenape people lived here, and they had their own forest spirits. One of them was a spirit called Mussing, who was described as a deer-like creature with leathery wings or as a deer being ridden by a man. So that's the stage. But here's the story. The way it's been told in South Jersey for a very long time.

It's 1735, a storm is sweeping in off the Pine Barrens, and a woman known as Mother Leeds is in labor. She already has 12 children. She's exhausted, she's poor, and there are whispers that she's dabbled in sorcery. And when she realizes baby number 13 is coming, Mother Leeds cries out, I am tired of children, let it be a devil. Well, when her little boy enters the world, it doesn't seem like she gets her wish. He's a perfect, handsome baby. Then he starts to change. His body stretches, the feet harden into hooves. The soft baby face lengthens into the long, bony skull of a horse. Bat wings push out of his shoulder blades. Then he, though now more of an it, rises off the bed bigger than a grown man. And with a scream, it shoots up the chimney and out into the storm.

Some versions of the story say it killed the midwife on the way out. Some say it ate its own family. Some say it was born deformed and mother leads kept it locked in the attic or the cellar for years before it escaped. With a legend like this, you'd expect to get different details like that. But the core of it stays the same. A mother at the end of her strength says something she can't take back. And the thing she says comes true.