The Jersey Devil: The Monster That Haunted the Pine Barrens
For centuries, stories have described a winged creature stalking the forests of southern New Jersey: a horse-headed, bat-winged thing supposedly born as the cursed thirteenth child of Mother Leeds. But the history behind the Jersey Devil may be stranger than the legend. Religious feuds, colonial politics, Benjamin Franklin, newspaper hysteria, hoaxes, and a remarkable week in January 1909 all helped transform the Leeds Devil into one of America's most famous monsters.