In 1677, a Quaker named Daniel Leeds came to America and settled in Burlington. Ten years later, Leeds worked with one of the first printers in precolonial America to publish an almanac.

The emphasis placed on astronomy in Leeds' almanac was viewed askance by his Quaker brethren; Leeds' attention to the stars was seen as occultism. Faced with criticism, Leeds only doubled down on the perceived mysticism in his work. In 1688 he published The Temple of Wisdom, a book heavily influenced by German mysticism.

He went on to publish other more explicitly anti-Quaker tracts, and came to work as council for Lord Cornbury, the British governor of New York and New Jersey. Most Quakers were opposed to British rule, which meant that members of the Quaker community saw Leeds' alliance with Lord Cornbury as yet another slap in the face from the traitorous almanac maker. In 1700, a tract entitled Satan’s Harbinger Encountered … Being Something by Way of Answer to Daniel Leeds explicitly accused Leeds of working for the devil.

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When Daniel Leeds retired from alamanc-ing in 1716, his son Titan inherited his father's mantle, and began feuding with none other than 100 dollar founding father Benjamin Franklin. Franklin's debut edition of Poor Richard's Almanack was published in 1732. For the 1733 edition, he poked fun at the Leeds almanac empire by jokingly predicting the day Titan Leeds would die.

Leeds responded by calling Franklin "a fool and a liar," to which Franklin replied by claiming he had “receiv’d much abuse from the ghost of Titan Leeds," since only a dead man could possibly have a response so stupid. Franklin did not let up, continuing in this vein even after Titan truly did die in 1738. Of his rival's death, Franklin wrote “Honest Titan, deceased, was raised [from the dead] and made to abuse his old friend [Franklin].” Too soon, Benjamin!

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Mother Leeds is believed to have been a real woman named Deborah Leeds, the wife of Japhet Leeds, Titan's brother. In 1736, Japhet claimed twelve children in his will. But the Leeds family's connection to the Jersey Devil legend likely had far more to do with politics than with an actual demon.

The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry points out that the Jersey Devil legend is believed to have originated around the time Titan Franklin did in fact die. Before his death, Titan had also redesigned the almanac masthead to include the family crest, which featured wyverns—legendary, dragon-like creatures that bear more than a passing resemblance to descriptions of the Jersey Devil.

It's likely that the story of the Jersey Devil began as yet another way to discredit and embarrass a loyalist family. Already accused of being Satan-worshippers and ghosts, a demonic half-kangaroo may have been, in the eyes of their enemies, a logical evolution for the Leeds family.

Jersey Devil: The History of an American Cryptid

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