History Of The Pine Barrens Of New Jersey Devil

“On a dark and stormy night sometime in 1735, a Quaker woman gave birth to a child”(Johnson and Munn 1). This child would be cursed by its mother for it to be the devil, “or more specifically ‘let it be the Devil!’ ”(Parkes). When the Devil was born it changed to have a kangaroo-like body with the face of a goat; it had bat-like wings, a forked tail, horns, and hooves. “After being born, the child changed into a Devil and as it flew away into the night it killed the midwife that helped birth it”(Parkes). As Johnson and Munn stated, “Mother Leeds is said to have had as many as 12 children before the devil, which lets some say that she cursed it from dire straits”(1). There are many other origins of the Devil such as, “A young woman would not give food to a begging gypsy and the gypsy cursed her so that her first child would become a devil”(Johnson and Munn 1).

“The Devil was born in the Pine Barrens, which spreads across 1700 square miles in southern New Jersey”(Johnson and Munn 1). The Devil has inhabited the area since as far back as before the Revolutionary War. To be more exact it surrounds the town of Leeds Point, but “has Black 2 since moved on to surrounding areas and beyond”(Parkes). There are times when the Jersey Devil was thought to be gone, but it always comes back home.
“The Jersey Devil feasted upon cattle and sheep of the land and later moved on to terrorize people with its scream of terror”(Parkes). People would run away from it when they encountered it and find places to hide from it so it would go away. “Because of the Jersey Devil: crops would fail, droughts went through the Pine Barrens, cows would give sour milk, streams would boil, and the tops of trees would be blown off”(Johnson and Munn 2). “It is also said that the Devil could also tell when a disaster or war would occur”(Johnson Munn