Joseph Bonaparte and the New Jersey Devil:
“Commodore Stephen Decatur was an American naval hero in the early 19th century. According to legend, he visited the Hanover Mill Works to inspect that his cannonballs were being forged. While there, he visited a firing range and saw a flying creature flapping his wings, a cannonball directly on him, had no effect and the creature flew away.
It was reported that Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother and former King of Spain, saw the devil. The incident took place in Bordentown, New Jersey, while hunting in nearby forests.
The infamous Captain Kidd is reputed to have buried treasure in Barnegat Bay. Legend has it that he beheaded one of his men to protect his buried treasure forever. Accounts claim that the headless pirate and the Jersey Devil became friends and were seen at night walking along the Atlantic and in nearby salt marshes.
In Clayton, New Jersey, the devil was chased by a gang to the edge of a wooded area. The devil fled into the forest. The gang, fearful of chasing him, stopped and declared ‘if you are the devil, rattle your chains.’
The devil’s taste varies. He was seen frolicking in the sea with a mermaid in 1870. And he is reputed to have had ham and eggs for breakfast with a Republican: the French judge. But the devil is not known to have specific political leanings.
Sightings of the devil have covered great geographic distances. – from Bridgeton to Haddonfield in 1859; to the New York border in 1899; and from Gloucester City to Trenton in 1909. Until then, stories of the devil were passed by word of mouth. However, the stories published by the police and newspapers during a famous week in January 1909 carried the story of the Devil from popular belief to authentic popular legend. Thirty different sightings in a one-week period spoke of the devil sailing across the Delaware River to Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The newspaper articles created a near panic in the region.
Theory and the devil
After the apparitions in 1909, the scientific community was asked for possible explanations. Reportedly, Philadelphia science professors and Smithsonian Institution experts thought the Devil was a prehistoric creature from the Jurassic period. Had the creature survived in nearby limestone caves? Was it a pterodactyl or a peleosaurus? Scientists in New York thought it was a carnivorous marsupial. Was it an extinct fissure? However, the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences could not locate any record of a living or dead species resembling the Jersey devil. “
There is a remote “chance” that the Habsburgs and Randolphs or other Merovingian sorcerers living in the upper Chesapeake area have something to do with this Devil. Some of their rituals definitely involve the summoning of Asmodeus or other elementals that some call demons. They also claim to be capable of shapeshifting, but I suspect they are involved in projecting hallucinations or what is called mental confusion. In any case, it is interesting to find Napoleon’s brother living in these parts of America.
