The Hopping Beast Shot at Bacon's Neck, Greenwich Township (1925)

In January 1909, New Jersey had seen a wave of Jersey Devil reports. Sixteen years later, the name still carried weight. When something strange turned up dead on a farm in the south of the state, the local paper reached for it.

The old Glaspell farm, near Bacon's Neck. William Hyman managed it for its owner, Barton F. Sharp. One December morning, before daybreak, he was awakened by a racket in his chicken coop. An animal ran from the coop with a chicken in its mouth. Hyman fired and fur flew, but the animal went on.

Then it came back and took a second bird. He fired again in the dim light and followed it into the meadows. About half a mile from the house, the animal turned and attacked him. Hyman shot it dead. It had taken seven chickens that night.

It was about the size of an Airedale dog, with black crinkly hair. On its hind feet were four webbed toes. Its jaw was "unlike a dog, wolf or coyote." And the teeth. "Its rear teeth are prong like, the upper ones fitting into the center of four prong lower ones."

It had moved wrongly, too. "It didn't run like a dog but hopped more like a kangaroo," its front end higher than its hind end. After death, the eyes were still a bright yellow. Despite the weather, the body stayed limber instead of stiff.

The Bridgeton Evening News carried the story on Monday, December 14, 1925. Hundreds had viewed the carcass over the weekend. Many photographed it. "No one could name the animal with certainty."

One guess suggested a dog, long starved and half wild. Another, a cross of dog and wolf. Most offered nothing. The paper issued an invitation: "Any one certain of the way a Jersey Devil looks is requested to view the beast and report." The Woodbury Daily Times followed the next day.

Charles Fort received the Woodbury clipping from Miss F. G. Talman of Woodbury. In Lo!, published in 1931, he placed the farm "near Woodbury" and added a line that has shadowed the case ever since. "I have written to Mr. Hyman, and have no reason to think that there is a Mr. Hyman." No reply is recorded, nor any examination of the carcass. None of the photographs has surfaced.

The Devil Hunters later noted that the story had been considered untrue, since neither Hyman nor the carcass was ever proven to exist. They also passed on a suggestion that the witness's real name was Hymer. A misspelled name could explain an unanswered letter.

Today the case is often filed under Greenwich Township, as in Weird N.J. by Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman, which gave the figure of 100 people unable to identify the beast. New Jersey has two Greenwich Townships, one in Gloucester County, whose seat is Woodbury. The other lies in Cumberland County, and Bacon's Neck is one of its localities. The Bridgeton paper, published in the Cumberland County seat, named Bacon's Neck, which makes Cumberland County the likelier home of the hopping beast. The question remains open. The story survives through transcriptions, retold by Nick Redfern in The Monster Book, and as one entry in the Jersey Devil's long list of sightings.