History & local legend
Cossart Road near the Delaware state line is widely known as Devil’s Road. Its folklore centers on a stone house, trees said to lean away from it, an exposed root formation nicknamed the Skull Tree and dark vehicles that supposedly pursue nighttime visitors.
University of Delaware reporter Shaun Gallagher drove the road for a February 2000 article. He observed the leaning trunks and large roots that helped give the stories their physical setting. He also interviewed H.G. Haskell, who had grown up on the road and remembered the legends circulating roughly fifteen years earlier.
Haskell supplied an explanation for at least one vehicle: neighbors had hired a security guard after crowds began arriving at night.
Sources
- Shaun Gallagher, Streets & Legends, The Review, University of Delaware, February 4, 2000, on-site reporting and interview with local resident H.G. Haskell
- Photographer Paul Narvaez, personal account and documentary view of Cossart Road
- Pennsbury Township, official open space map showing Cossart Road
- OpenStreetMap, Cossart Road, Pennsbury Township
