Reported Encounters
There have been many sightings and occurrences allegedly involving the Jersey Devil.
According to legend, while visiting the Hanover Mill Works to inspect his cannonballs being forged, Commodore Stephen Decatur sighted a flying creature flapping its wings and fired a cannonball directly upon it to no effect.
Joseph Bonaparte, eldest brother of Emperor Napoleon, is also said to have witnessed the Jersey Devil while hunting on his Bordentown estate around 1820. In 1840, the devil was blamed for several livestock killings. Similar attacks were reported in 1841, accompanied by tracks and screams.
Claims of a corpse matching the Leeds Devil's description arose in Greenwich in December 1925. A local farmer shot an unidentified animal as it attempted to steal his chickens. Afterward, he claimed that none of 100 people he showed it to could identify it. On July 27, 1937 an unknown animal "with red eyes" seen by residents of Downingtown, Pennsylvania was compared to the Jersey Devil by a reporter for the Pennsylvania Bulletin. In 1951, a group of Gibbstown, New Jersey boys claimed to have seen a 'monster' matching the Devil's description. and claims of a corpse matching the Jersey Devil's description arose in 1957. In 1960, tracks and noises heard near Mays Landing were claimed to be from the Jersey Devil. During the same year the merchants around Camden offered a $10,000 reward for the capture of the Jersey Devil, even offering to build a private zoo to house the creature if captured.
Read more about this topic: Jersey Devil
Famous quotes containing the words reported and/or encounters:
“It was reported their singing resembled
the flight of moths in moonlight.
Who can say? It is silent now.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“One encounters very capable fathers abashed by their piano-playing daughters. Three measures of Schumann make them red with embarrassment.”
—Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)