The Claim
According to legend, in 1735 a Pine Barrens woman named Mother Leeds, pregnant with her thirteenth child, cursed the baby in frustration. It was supposedly born a normal infant before transforming into a winged, horse-headed, cloven-hoofed creature that flew off into the forest, where it has been reportedly sighted ever since.
The Evidence
- Hundreds of sightings reported across South Jersey over nearly three centuries.
- A famous 1909 “week of terror” when reports flooded in from multiple towns simultaneously.
- Distinctive hoofprint patterns found in snow, reported by numerous separate witnesses.
The Official Story
Historians have found no record of a “Mother Leeds” matching the legend, and the story lines up suspiciously well with real political tensions of the era — the Leeds family patriarch was an unpopular royalist astrologer, and rival pamphleteers may have started the tale to mock him. The 1909 panic is now generally credited to a mix of mass hysteria, misidentified sandhill cranes, and opportunistic hoaxers cashing in on the frenzy.
File Notes
The NHL's New Jersey Devils are named directly after the legend, making this rare case of a cryptid with its own professional sports franchise.