Unique New Jersey History and Mystery
This year we celebrate and pause to remember many momentous occasions. This year we took a huge step forward as a country and a people by electing the first person of color as President. I for one, am happy to have witness this historic moment. But this was not the only historic moment we celebrate this year. 2009 marks the 200th birthday of America’s premier literary figure (yes, yes I am biased in this) Edgar Allan Poe. While few wanted him in life, many lay claim to him in death as he has no less than five houses preserved in his name between Virginia and New York City. This year also marks, rather fittingly some might argue, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was the 16th President and the first to die by an assassin’s hand. He holds a special place in the pantheon of American Statesmen and is as close to a Civil Saint as we have. Lincoln is held in unique regard even among great leaders.
It is good to step back and remember history and the men and women who created it. It is important to remember that they were indeed merely men and women, flesh and blood, mortal. Unless, of course, they weren’t. 2009 marks the centennial of another special moment in history, one that is uniquely New Jersey. In January of 1909 , between the 16th and the 22nd, dozens of people across the lower portion of the state saw a creature so unusual and unexpected that it could only have been the Jersey Devil. The creature was seen to fly over all of south Jersey and even into Pennsylvania. His rampage was reported nation wide in respected newspapers of the time. It was reported to be in excess of 8 feet tall, with leathery wings and a horse’s head. It walked upright on cloven feet, with to small appendages for arms. Footprints were found on rooftops and in barns with no tracks leading up to or away, as if the creature flew in and flew out.
As many know, the legend of the Jersey Devil tells us that he was born to Mother Leeds in 1735, the unwanted thirteenth child of a woman worn out from childbearing. She cursed the child within her and asked that the devil take him. The devil did her one better and gave her a monster for a child that would be the bane of all people of the Jersey Pine Barrens.
That is the myth. What many do not know is that prior to European settlers, the Lenape Indians called the Pine Barren’s , “ The place of the Dragon”. Later still, Swedish explorers called the place ‘Drake Kill” which translates directly to Dragon Channel.
Okay, so I don’t know if the Jersey Devil exists in any other way than our collective imagination, but either way, it is pretty cool. I like the possibility that the Pine Barren’s, one million acres of the weird and unknown is just about 40 miles south of our cool little City by the Sea. Asbury Park is like the Jersey Devil, unique New Jersey, mythological, historical and probably magical. Just one more reason I love our state.
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