Body of Jersey Devil Found in Woods

In my book Detours Into the Paranormal: Atlantic City Road Trip, I wrote at length about the Garden State’s most famous cryptid: the Jersey Devil. The creature has a long history in New Jersey dating back to Colonial times and sightings occur to the present day. However, the early-1900s were, without a doubt, the Jersey devil’s heyday. 

The following article titled “Body of "Jersey Devil" Found in Woods,” appeared in the Palladium-Item, a Richmond, Indiana, newspaper on October 20, 1909:

If anybody ever doubted that a "Jersey devil' left its uncanny footprints in the snow of this and adjoining states last winter, here is the proof that the scare was never due to highballs. It is the carcass of the queerest animal ever seen, a beast that is not listed in any natural history ever read by any one of this section. 

The remains, still in good shape, were found by Morris Cabinsky, and another boy of Roebling, in the woods near Kinkona, this afternoon, and are now on exhibition in this city, where hundreds of people have seen and marveled at them. 

Photographs have been made of the beast and Professor Henry Morse, curator of the state museum, will be appealed to to give the animal a name and place it where it belongs if he is able to do so. The boys thought at first they had come upon the carcass of a big wildcat, but it looked so queer to them that they decided to carry it into town, where it instantly attracted widespread attention. The animal is about two feet long, slender of body, with some resemblance to a cat as to the head and fur, but with two forelegs that look more like the hind legs of a kangaroo, only they have four distinct joints and terminate in bony feet of immense dimensions. 

The hind legs are rather like those of a cat, but much larger. The neck of the beast is long and slender and the head very small in proportion to the rest of the body. 

Last winter several persons claimed to have caught glimpses of the "Jersey devil," but all averred that it flew.

Read more about the Jersey Devil in my book.

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