November, 1917- William Kunze sees a brown creature with horns and glowing yellow eyes he believes to be the Jersey Devil standing in front of his outhouse when he went to use it one night. He flees.

July, 1924- 2 men and their nephew hear a shriek in the woods behind them in New Gretna as they return home from a fishing trip. One of them takes off running with the boy as the shrieks continue, while the other throws fish into the woods away from them along the way. When they run out of fish, and it’s still coming, they all bolt, emerging from the woods to find the rest of their family on the porch waiting for them. They had heard the cries too, and knew the men would be returning. Early the next morning none of their cows were in the barn, all of them being in the upper pasture, and when one of them went into the barn, he was knocked down by “A big brown thing with a large head, bigger than a police dog.” The cows refused to enter the barn until daylight.

1927- A taxi cab driver changing a flat tire along the side of the road in Salem encounters a Sasquatch-like beast who emerges from the pines to shake his car. he drives off on the still flat tire until he reaches a diner in Salem. After telling them what had happened, 2 men drive back to the site and recover the spare tire, but nothing else is found.

1940- A dark, hairy thing darts out of the woods near Medford Farms, stealing a woman’s fur coat as she walked home at twilight.

July, 1944- A number of people encounter a foul-smelling hairy creature in Rancocas Woods, and a posse is quickly formed to hunt it down, despite orders from the police to avoid Rancocas Creek. 2 young brothers stake out a path in the woods and witness the creature passing below them. Eventually the posse kills a huge hog, satisfying the curious, and although one of the brothers is convinced that that is what they must have seen, the other steadfastly maintains that it was not.

1950- An 11-year old girl sees the Jersey Devil looking in at her through her window. She describes it as human-like, but not human, and somehow knew it had been looking at her for some time. As it appeared unswayed by her observation, she screamed for her mother, causing it to flee into the night.

November, 1950- 3 people working on building a house hear a noise, seeing something with orange eyes hopping about in the woods, which then screeches and runs off. They then and there vow not to work on the house at night again.

1953- A woman enters her car to cool down after storming out on her husband during an argument. As she sits a strange 4 1/2 feet tall creature with dark seal-like fur, webbed hands, and large glowing eyes tries to open the door. She quickly locks the doors and begins screaming, alerting her husband who runs outside to see the creature lope off into the woods in Whitesville.

1956- An egg truck driver’s headlights illuminate a stream from which a hairy 6-foot creature is rising. It ran on 2 feet, briefly placing it’s front paws on the truck before ascending a nearby ridge in New Gretna.

1960- Strange screams are heard out in the pines. Game wardens set out many traps, but nothing unusual is caught.

1961- Charles Romano spots a 5-foot-tall bipedal creature with reddish hair making odd noises walking through the woods while he was bowhunting for deer near Indian Mills. His partner saw nothing, but did hear the sounds.

1965- Police shoot at a violent crashing in the woods near the Glassboro Fish and Wildlife Management Area in Clayton after being called to the scene about a Jersey Devil sighting.

July, 1968- A pickup-truckful of campers hears a high-pitched, cracking scream as they pass a blueberry field near Bell Haven Lake. They then observe a dark form thrashing through the bushes of the field.

October, 1970- Billy Dunnkosky, a folk singer, had been hearing strange sounds from the woods behind his house outside Freehold since 1968. In 1970, something had been trampling his yard for several nights running. He tried to track it with several German Shepherds, but they turned their tails and ran. Finally he used a spotlight and caught sight of the interloper, what he described as “funny-looking, like a gorilla with big teeth. It was at least 6-feet-tall and covered with hair.” He shot it several times with a .22, but nothing happened. Later his brother strung barbed wire across the path they thought it was using, only to find it broken up like straw, with human-like 3-toed footprints nearby.

1973- An elderly South Jersey woman hears a scratching sound and looks out the window to see the face of a Sasquatch in her yard. After recovering from the shock of the event, she feels sorry for the beast, and begins leaving food out for it every night. One night she awakes to a loud crashing and looks out the window to see her trashcan flying through the air. It is then she realizes that she had forgotten to leave him his dinner.

Spring, 1975- A former Green Beret flees in terror after he sees a Sasquatch growling and thrashing about near his campsite in High Point State Park.

1975- 2 NJ Division of Fish and Game officers see a Sasquatch emerging from the fog in a swamp in Sussex County.

1975- A 6-foot-tall Sasquatch-like creature jumps out in front of a young man’s car in Tom’s River. Having just passed a police car, he turns around and flags it down. The policeman returns with him to the area, telling him to remain in the car while he checks it out. Minutes later the now-panicked policeman comes running back from the woods and jumps into his car, telling him to drive off. The young man suffers from nightmares for a long time afterwards.

1976- A married couple observes a Sasquatch amble across a road in Bernardsville.

April, 1976- Jay Adams sees a family of 5 Sasquatch in the Limecrest area of Sussex County.

Summer, 1977- A woman in Penn’s Grove says a large hairy creature grabbed the door handle of her car, and was apparently able to run alongside at speeds up to 60 mph.

January 16, 1978- Dale English and a friend detect an odour like rotting fish while iceskating and spot a 7-foot-tall creature with red eyes staring at them in Chatsworth.

June, 1978- 2 women camping illegally along the abandoned railroad tracks in Atsion awake to unearthly screams and violent thrashing in the bushes outside their tent. They sent their large dog out to investigate, but the dog very quickly retreated back into the tent. They later fled the woods to an all-night diner in Hammonton.

June, 1981- As a group of people were canoeing the Mullica, a strange creature kept pace with them through the underbrush near the water.

July, 1981- A group of women in their 20s, holding a reunion camping trip, are terrorized by something thrashing in the woods outside their tents, peering at them with red eyes near Waretown.

1986-87- Police, animal trappers, and others scour the area after numerous incidents of howling and growling are reported in the Vineland area.

Another thought about the “scaly” appearance. Having done my own share of wandering through the pines, it’s pretty easy to get needles and leaves caught in your hair. The Sasquatch need not intentionally roll around in order to have lots of things entangled in their hair (Although that rock and pitch idea sounds pretty cool to me. To my mind it also implies a certain level of intelligence that some would discount for such a creature).

People go riding on their quads and dirtbikes up in those trails all the time. I expect I’ll be asking around with some people I know, see what I can find out. I, personally, have also never heard sasquatch-sounding stories called the Jersey Devil. I do recall a story from…2003, I believe, maybe ‘04 or ‘05, that I read in Weird New Jersey magazine, about a family that heard something upon their roof, and upon investigation, discovered hoof prints in the snow.

The particular story I am familiar with is of Mother Leeds. For those of you that do not know this particular tale….Mr. and Mrs. Leeds lived in the Pine Barrens, a little ways away from most of the houses. They had 12 children already, and when Mrs. Leeds discovered she was pregnant with a 13th, she declared, “Let this one be the child of the devil!” In time, everyone forgot this curse upon her unborn child, until he was born. Naturally, it was storming that night. The midwives had ushered Mr. Leeds and the other children out of the room. The child was born human, no complications, but then he started to change. His body transformed into that of the creature on the poster you see above, and he proceeded to murder all the midwives, his mother, and several of his siblings before flying up the chimney and out into the storm. There are still descendants of the Leeds family living in the area, but to my knowledge, they cannot confirm or deny the stories.

BG