The Week the Devil was Real: The Great Jersey Devil Panic of 1909
On a cold night in the middle of January about a dozen farmers, shopkeepers and police officers set off into the woods. This ragtag posse is armed with shotguns and revolvers. They have brought their dogs along to fetch the game that they’re out hunting. They are following tracks in the freshly fallen snow, hoofprints, but these hoofprints are not like those of a horse or of any animal that these men have ever seen before. These hoofprints are large and cloven in two like the tracks of a devil. All night, for the past several nights, the residents of Springfield Township, New Jersey, have heard a gut-wrenching screeching howl filling the air. And they have been startled and awoken in the middle of the night, from their deep winter’s slumber, by the thudding sound of hooves landing on their rooftops. Now, a group of armed citizens has taken it upon themselves to set out to try and kill or capture the creature that has been terrorizing them all. ...