LOCATION: Pine Barrens, NJ
CHALLENGE: 
DATE/NUMBER: 04-Feb-2001/33
MAP:
Somewhere deep within the white cedar swamps and cranberry
bogs, perhaps hiding along one of the old, barely visible
stage roads that link the fingerprints of the forgotten
towns in the Pine Barrens, lurks the Jersey Devil.
Many descriptions of the beast have been reported; some say
it looks like an eagle with four feet, a deformed child, a
horse-headed creature, a crane, or a flying lion. It has
been blamed for many deeds of woe, such as the slaughter of
livestock, the spoilage of milk and eggs, drought, and even
war. Still others claim the phenomena is a silly superstition
or outright hoax.
I had once thought it a hoax myself -- the tired remains of
an old Lenape legend passed down by word of mouth, or a tale
concocted by the Pineys to scare the kids on halloween or
explain the failure and spoilage of crops in this difficult land.
That was until I came face to face with this beast myself.
It was Midwinter's Eve, some 65 years ago, (exactly 200 years
after after the Devil's unlucky birth, or so I'm told), that I
was wandering the Pines visiting the forgotten ghost towns,
which could still be seen pretty well in those days. The towns
where first bog iron was industriously converted into munitions
for the Revolutionary War, then, as that played out, were
converted to paper mills, glass factories, clay mines, and
the like.
That was until the Iron Horse came through, of course,
obsoleting the sandy stagecoach routes and brackish shipping
lanes, and eventually the towns themselves, wiping them from
all but the best of maps and leaving nothing but
fingerprints -- clearings of Indian grass, exotic trees, and a
few other signs for the astute explorer; desolate sands and
roads to nowhere that told no tales, for everyone else.
I first visited the town where, 4 decades earlier, they came
from all over the Pines to bet on the fights or nab the best
girl at the weekly dances. Not much was left except for the
mystery of the disappearance of the man who gave the town its
name after jilting his girl of the night, and the tree where it
happened. I leaned back against this tree and pondered this
mystery a bit, as many others had before me. Some claimed to
have seen hoofprints at the time, while others speculated on
the more bizarre, such as other worlds and holes in space that
swallowed up the unfortunate gentleman that evening. (Nowadays,
of course, the place has been totally lost to time, except perhaps
in a street sign -- even the restaurant that sits at the original
townsite no longer has the place mats with the legend, just coffee
and overcooked burgers for those that continue to come from near
and far seeking out the rumored interdimensional gates in the
area, but I digress ...).
Anyway, I left this town, looking for the town south of
Chatsworth which was perhaps named by some poor soul who
got a vague glimpse of the Devil and wasn't sure what he
saw. The old stage hotel (or tavern?) was still standing
then; now all that can be found, or so they tell me, is a
single remaining gravestone of the several that were in
the consecrated plot by the side of the old road.
I still had some daylight left, so I carried on looking for
the site of another of the forgotten towns. My old map showed
it some 57,293 feet from the first town I visited, 52,942
feet from the cemetery, and 158,975 feet from the alleged
birthplace of the Devil himself, if one is to believe that
poppycock.
I ended up at an intersection of the main road (or at least
the one with a name on my map, all those tracks looked
the same to me), and a crossroad, perhaps leading thru the pines
to the old train station. The town was supposedly north of the
crossroad and west of the main road, but I could not find it.
I knew the town was an old clay mining town, so I headed west
down the crossroad looking for the remains of the 19th century
clay pits.
I eventually found these, along with the lake the mining had
caused, but no sign of the town. I knew there were a couple
of other forgotten towns in the area, (although even my map
didn't have one of them on it), so I decided to try my luck
with those instead. I headed back to the main road, and south
towards the one that was on my map (where incidentally, I now
here rumors that Druids visit the lost cemetery there once a year,
but I knew nothing of this sort at the time, and have still yet,
even to this day, to find the cemetery, so I doubt they have
either).
After an odd intersection, I then came to the one that wasn't
on my map, or was the map wrong? I started poking around the
site -- nothing substantial, just the usual fingerprints along
with some terra cotta pipe, timbered old growth stumps, a couple
pieces of wood, and some bricks and stone.
Its always strange how your subconscious is aware of things
before your consciousness is. I was poking around what must
have been the site of the stage hotel, or a stone and brick
house in any case, when I felt a chill like nothing I have ever
felt before, and it was not due to the weather. Then I saw it
in the snow, cloven hoofprints leading off across the clearing
towards a large tree to the east. Curiosity always trumps fear,
so I watched, senses numbed, as I felt myself dumbly following
the hoofprints thru the snow, across some scattered bricks and
a half-buried course of foundation stone, towards a strange shape
leaning against the tree.
It was not exactly what I expected, nor was it as others had
previously described. It had the head of a ram, the body of a
horse (without forelimbs), and the wings of a bat. Its scaly
skin was a ruddy red, whilst its horns and eyes glowed an ivory
white. In all truth, I think it was more surprised to see me
that I it. It headed off towards the south, or perhaps southeast,
about 15 paces to where it stepped up on an old rotted hunk of
wood in a grove of pines, and then flew off into the twilight.
Well, here ends my tale of that cold Midwinter's Eve all those
years ago. No longer the doubting Thomas, add me to the list
of other such reputable folk as Commodore Stephen Decatur and
his Royal Highness Joseph Bonaparte, who can confirm, first hand,
that the Jersey Devil does indeed exist. Some say that it shows
itself every seven years; I don't know about that, but perhaps
someday when you are wandering the lost towns and maze of sandy
roads thru New Jersey's Pine Barrens, you'll be fortunate enough
to get a glimpse of it as well.
