The Pine Barrens of New Jersey are a sea of scrub pine, cedar water, and sandy roads that seem to lead nowhere. For more than two hundred years, people there have told of the Jersey Devil — a creature with a horse-like head, wings, and a cry that cuts through the trees.
The best-known story begins with Mother Leeds, a woman who, worn down by a hard life and a house full of children, is said to have cursed her thirteenth. In the telling, the child was born and then changed: hooves, wings, and a flight up the chimney into the pines. From then on, farmers blamed it for dead livestock and strange tracks in the snow.
In 1909, newspapers claimed the creature was on a rampage across the region. Schools closed. Posses walked the woods. Most of those reports were later called rumors and hoaxes, but the Barrens kept the story anyway.
Stand in those pines on a still night and you will understand why. The woods swallow sound. A snapped branch can feel closer than it is. And the old name — the Leeds Devil — still travels the sand roads, looking for someone willing to listen.
