Show Notes
In January of 1909, strange tracks began appearing in the snow across New Jersey.
They crossed yards. Climbed fences. Appeared on rooftops. Witnesses reported hearing wings outside their homes and seeing something with hooves, glowing eyes, feathers, fur—and occasionally a head like a horse.
Schools reportedly closed. Armed posses went looking for it. Newspapers put it on the front page.
And suddenly, everyone was talking about an old story from deep inside the Pine Barrens.
According to the legend, in 1735 a woman known as Mother Leeds discovered she was pregnant with her thirteenth child and cursed the unborn baby:
Let this one be the Devil.
But buried underneath the familiar monster story is a real colonial family that had been associated with Satan for decades, a feud involving Benjamin Franklin, a massive newspaper-fueled panic—and a Philadelphia showman who decided the best way to capitalize on the hysteria was to paint a kangaroo and give it wings.
Tonight, we're heading into the Pine Barrens for the strange history of New Jersey's most famous monster.
Welcome to Day Eight of 31 Days of Halloween.
More from Haunted American History
In 1967, the RMS Queen Mary arrived in Long Beach, California, after more than three decades crossing the Atlantic.
In Savannah, Georgia, ghost stories are everywhere.
On November 13, 1974, a young man ran into a bar in Amityville, New York, shouting that his parents had been shot.
In 1907, a wealthy Boston businessman named Thomas Lawson published a novel called Friday, the Thirteenth.
In 1891, a jeweler in Salem, Massachusetts, began selling a silver souvenir spoon decorated with a witch on a broomstick.