It's January of 1909. Times are modern! There are cars, escalators, instant coffee... humans are even flying! Our old fashioned, supersticious ways were a thing of the past.
Charles Skinner, a folklorist, even went so far in a book written in 1900 to declare that, "It is said that its life has nearly run its course and with the advent of a new century many worshipful commoners of Jersey dismissed, for good and all, the fear of the monster from their mind." What monster was he talking about? The Leeds Devil, of course, better known today as the Jersey Devil.
January 1909 would go to show just how very wrong that Skinner had been.
January 16th. It started in Woodbury, NJ where Thack Cozzens was just leaving the Woodbury Hotel at night. "I heard a hissing, and something white flew across the street. I saw two spots of phosphorus, the eyes of the beast." Beofre the night was out, three people in Bristol, Pennsylvania would have their own encounters with "the beast", as well as several people in Burlington. By morning, strange tracks were found in the snow all over those three towns.
By the end of the week, dozens of people claimed to have seen the Jesey Devil. Thousands had seen unusual tracks. South Jersey was panick striken as schools and businesses closed and people stayed home in fear.
Camden County was not immune. In Haddonfield, a pair of posses tracked the creature. In Collingswood, the station agent also led a posse, which caught a glimpse of the monster.
However, it was here in Haddon Heights that had one of the most terrifying incidents. A late night trolley was heading from Clementon to Camden. and as it passed through town, a passanger cried out, "There's that thing, take it away!" The terrified passangers crowded the windows and, as the trolley came to a stop in town, the creature circles the trolley, hissing. Conductor Lewis Boeger later described what he saw for the newspapers.
At the end of the week, the Jersey Devil sightings suddenly stopped.
Today, it's modern times! We have the Internet and video chat and vacuum cleaners that clean up on their own. Our old fashioned, supersticious ways are a thing of the past. No one believes in that nonsense anymore. But as many a true Jerseyman or woman will tell you, deep in the pine barrens at night, you won't find very many that don't believe. And someday soon, that fear might return to the rest of the region.
Cache is a small lock top container hidden in a park. Be super careful of the many small muggles that congregate here (hence the difficulty level)!
Image of the Jersey Devil, done by a police sketch artist from an eyewitness description of Mr and Mrs Evans, Gloucester City, NJ, January 1909.
Source:
The Jersey Devil by James McCloy and Ray Miller, Jr, Middle Atlantic Press, 1976.