Norman Jefferies

Jersey Devil Captured!!! Alive!!!

Norman Jefferies was a theatrical producer, publicist and agent. But nothing in his career eclipsed his "Jersey Devil Hoax" of 1909.

The legend of the Jersey Devil, Mother Leeds's accursed 13th child, goes back to the 18th century. Not even Benjamin Franklin, as "Poor Richard", could resist taking up the chicanery.

For Jefferies, it was an unusual number of reported sightings of the fabled creature in January 1909 that "aroused his showman's instinct". He seized the opportunity to drum up customers for his client, the Dime Museum at 9th and Arch.

He planted cloven hoofprints in the snow throughout the region, arranged hypothesizing "experts", staged a capture in Hunting Park and announced the creature would be on view at 9th and Arch, admission to all 10 cents. Thousands reportedly crowded the museum to behold the creature. Wouldn't you?

Spoiler: In the tradition of P.T. Barnum's Feejee Mermaid, the devil was a kangaroo, painted and fitted with fake wings. In some accounts, a hired boy would occasionally poke it to make the crowd jump.

Fresh off the Jersey Devil escapade, Norman and Gwendolyn Jefferies moved to Narberth between 1911 and 1914. They bought the 1883 Von Williamson house at 219 N. Narberth Avenue, maybe the third house in Edward Price's "Ladys' Book Village". Gwendolyn raised award-winning flowers in her garden, and Norman led a rather quieter existence as a promoter and agent for vaudeville acts.

When Jefferies died in 1933, the lead, and most of the ink, in his obituary belonged to the Jersey Devil. Twenty-eight years later, in 1961, he was profiled as a "Two-Legged Fox on the Midway" in True magazine, still prominently linked to the Jersey Devil.

An impressive collection of newspaper clippings reporting on the hoax.

The Jersey Devil on Wikipedia