New York Folklore Quarterly: Volume III, No. 2

VOICES
The Journal of New York Folklore

The membership magazine of the
New York Folklore Society

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The Journal of New York Folklore was published 1975-1999. Back issues are still available.

The New York Folklore Quarterly was published 1946-1974. Back issues are still available.

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NEW YORK FOLKLORE QUARTERLY
Vol. III, No. 2, Summer, 1947

THE JERSEY DEVIL AND OTHER LEGENDS OF THE JERSEY SHORE
Henry Charlton Beck

IT IS always a source of amazement to me when someone turns up who admits a total ignorance of The Jersey Devil, New Jersey’s most celebrated—and most maligned—phantom of the shore. I grew up in an area of New Jersey where The Jersey Devil was accepted as very real and usually blamed for everything strange that happened. If a farmer discovered peculiar footprints in his dooryard, if someone heard weird cries hooted down a country chimney, or if a petty theft lacked a customary explanation, The Jersey Devil was always given the newspaper headlines as the culprit responsible.

As a result, the Jersey Devil became almost exclusively associated with newspapermen who rarely checked their imagination or who, for lack of any real news on a dull day, dreamed up a highly colorful tale. It was not until I came upon people along the New Jersey Coast who spoke with reverence of Leeds’s Devil, mostly associated with an almost forgotten village of pre-Revolutionary days, that I realized suddenly that once, truly enough, there was a Jersey Devil. ...

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NOTE: The New York Folklore Society Newsletter and New York Folklore Journal were replaced by Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore which debuted in December, 2000.

Membership in NYFS includes a subscription to Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore.