The Jersey Devil was a local legend in the Pine Barrens area of New Jersey for over 250 years but during a week in January of 1909 dozens, some say 100s, of sightings cause it to be a national sensation. They say it is a kangaroo-like creature with the head of a goat, leathery bat-like wings, horns, small arms with clawed hands, cloven hooves and a forked tail. And it makes a “blood-curdling scream”. Was it Mother Leeds’s thirteenth child and what did Benjamin Franklin have to do with it?

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