Don’t walk too closely next to this rock in Brooklyn. Satan himself may have touched it.
by Rich Watson
This is the time of year for accepting the supernatural, if only for fun. New York has its share of corners where ghost stories are still told and unexplained phenomena have been thought to occur.
In a prominent Brooklyn cemetery, for example, there is a certain rock, which some say bears the hoof print… of the Devil.
(This is assuming, of course, that you believe in the existence of the Devil—and God, for that matter. Take the following story for what it’s worth.)
Runnin’ with the Devil
In art school, my senior project was an illustrated book on American myths and legends, so I know our folklore comes in many forms.
When it comes to folk tales specifically about Ol’ Scratch, ours, of course, is but one part of a wider, worldwide canon of stories humanity tells itself about capital-E Evil in the form of a single being. Heavy metal music alone must account for at least five percent of it!
Why do we tell such tales? I suspect it’s comforting to point to one thing as the source of all suffering—and to see ordinary humans overcome it through nothing more than their wits.
A few examples of American folklore about Beelzebub:
- “Jack and the Devil,” in which a dude convinces Lucifer to delay his eternal sentence in Hell.
- “The Devil and Jonathan Moulton,” in which a Revolutionary War general sold his soul to Mephistopheles.
- “Malindy and Little Devil” and “Woman and Man Started Even,” which come from specifically black female perspectives.
- “The Jersey Devil,” an urban legend from the Garden State which persists to this day.
- “Devil at the Disco,” in which a Texas teen may have danced with the devil not in the pale moonlight, but at a club.
Our story involving a Brooklyn rock predates the founding of America.
The Devil went down to Brooklyn
Martense Lane was in Sunset Park, between Park Slope and Bay Ridge. Long before anyone sold artisanal mayonnaise or built arenas for mediocre basketball teams, “Breuckelen” was a seventeenth-century Dutch settlement on the western end of Long Island. Before that, Lenape Indians lived there.
A road named for resident Jacob van Brunt Martense ran east to west and connected to a more prominent waterfront pathway. It would play a role in the Revolutionary War during the Battle of Brooklyn. Homesteaders occupied the area, who kept slaves. The lane isn’t there anymore, though there is a Martense Street—not the same thing.
The legend goes like this: a slave, coming from Flatbush to Gowanus along Martense Lane, meets a stranger who challenges him to either a fiddling contest or a dance-off (I’ve seen both versions). After several hours, the slave wins. The stranger gets so mad he kicks a boulder. The action leaves not a footprint but a hoof print. Why? Because the stranger was really the Devil.
The dull, boring truth is the boulder in Sunset Park today is not believed to be the same one, assuming it even exists. A glacier deposited it fourteen thousand years ago. A construction crew unearthed it. In 2014, community members helped move it near what may have been Martense Lane, in a visible location: Green-Wood Cemetery.
Green-Wood Cemetery
New York has creepy cemeteries, but GW is far from one of them. Built in 1838, nine years before a statewide Act that approved commercial burial grounds, it’s connected to a greenhouse and a chapel. Despite its somber purpose, the cemetery functioned like a public park, and it led indirectly to the building of Central and Prospect Parks.
Among GW’s most popular, um, residents include Leonard Bernstein, Horace Greeley, Samuel Morse, Henry Steinway, Charles Ebbets, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The Devil’s rock is on the Fifth Avenue side of GW, between 34th and 36th Streets, and can easily be viewed from the outside in, but feel free to visit the rest of the place. It’s loaded with notable graves, remarkable architecture and lovely gardening.
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Have you been to Green-Wood Cemetery to see the Devil’s rock? Leave a comment and let me know!
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