Devil’s Jump

Might as Well Jump! Jump!
Devil’s Jump, Derby
December 2024

Here I am again… the guy slowly driving through a cemetery, past a burial service, looking for a place called Devil’s Jump. Cemetery roads are notoriously maze-like, perhaps I’ll just stop to ask someone directions to the place where Satan hangs out…

Of course I did not do that – I’m not a monster for one, but also because no one has called anything here along an innocent brook in extreme southern Derby “Devil’s” anything for probably a hundred years at least.

But I went digging and I found the genesis of the evil placename. This comes from The History of the Old Town of Derby, Connecticut, 1642 – 1880 written by Samuel Orcutt and Ambrose Beardsley in 1880. Let’s set the scene if you’re unfamiliar with white people writing about nonwhite people in 1880:

Just above Two-mile brook, on the Whitney farm was also an Indian settlement, established there many years after the one at the spot originally called Turkey Hill. This latter place is the one more familiarly known at the present time, and for some years past, as Turkey Hill.

An anecdote or two concerning the Indian Chuse, have not appeared in print. Living among the white settlers he became partially civilized, often going to church and thereby obtaining some knowledge of the doctrines of the gospel.

“Partially” civilized because he did some bible learnin’. I don’t really have much to write on this page, so let’s hear some more about this Chuse guy:

Having a child dangerously ill, he became impressed with the desire of having it baptized, and called on the Congregational minister to perform the ceremony. The parson asked him if he was in full communion with the church. He replied that he was not. “Then I must refuse to baptize him, “said the parson. “Do you call yourself a minister of Christ?” asked Chuse. “Yes,” was the reply. Said Chuse, “You are not! You are the devil’s minister. Christ commanded to teach all nations, baptizing them in the Lord.” The sick child, however, received the rite of baptism from the Episcopal minister. This story is authenticated by one who was familiar with all the parties.

Although the minister is accused of working for the Devil, that has nothing to do with Devil’s Jump of Derby. But this does:

Some few marks or foot-prints of the Red man in Derby still remain. Close by the New Haven and Derby railroad on the Whitney farm, is an Indian corn mill, or mortar, sunk in the bed rock. It is about eight inches in diameter at the top and the same in depth. Here, for many years, the Indians ground the corn for their daily bread. This is a little south of the ravine called the Devil’s Jump; near which are said to be two more mortars sunk in the bed rock.

With so many landmarks present to this day, it was easy to find Devil’s Jump. Or where Devil’s Jump used to be. It is clear to me that over the last 200 years, the ravine as been de-ravined. Two-Mile Brook, was changed for the railroad tracks and for Route 34. And, if I were to guess, for the businesses that abut it on the Derby side near its mouth at the Housatonic River. (It appears that the Brook serves as the border with Orange for a few hundred yards here.)

So there is no more Devil’s Jump. After parking in Mt. Saint Peter’s Cemetery, I followed Two-Mile Brook as best I could from the Housatonic, past Greco and Haines, almost up to Route 34. There’s no chasm, no overhangs, nowhere from which a Devil could jump.

But hey, I took some pictures and now you have a dumb racist story to tell your friends.

All things Satan in Connecticut