The lore survives. The Devil keeps changing.

[Scroll down to see the iterations of the Devil in Ipswich]

The volcanic rock associated with the Devil’s Footprint in Ipswich is approximately 450 million years old, dating to the Ordovician Period.

The footprint is considerably younger.

According to Ipswich legend, the mark was left when the Devil confronted the Rev. George Whitefield during his visit to Ipswich in 1740. Whitefield really did preach in Ipswich that year, but the earliest version of the Devil’s Footprint story we have found does not appear until 1845, more than a century after the supposed encounter.

Over the years, the details changed. The Devil jumped, fell, fought, fled, or was thrown from the steeple. Different tellers gave the footprint different origins while the strange mark in the rock remained.

The rock is ancient. The footprint became a story. For nearly two centuries, Ipswich has kept telling it.

The first Devil created for the Devil’s Footprint event was a custom papier mâché piñata made by Josiah Brown. Bright red, orange, and yellow, with horns, wings, a tail, and pitchfork, this Devil was built for one very specific purpose: to lose.

During the September 28, 2025 event at First Church in Ipswich, the Devil appeared as part of the reenactment of the local legend. After George Whitefield’s sermon, the story moved from preaching to battle, with a martial arts demonstration representing the legendary fight between Whitefield and the Devil. 

The defeated Devil then faced a considerably more dangerous opponent: a crowd of children. Filled with candy, the handmade piñata was brought out after the battle and promptly destroyed by the young participants. The Local News reported that the final fight lasted only a few seconds. 

The 2025 Devil was colorful, ridiculous, temporary, and very much doomed from the beginning. The mostly destroyed 2025 papier mâché piñata lives on with one of the organizers. 

For the second Devil’s Footprint event, Hungarian puppet artist Ágnes Molnárné Ábrahám created four custom hand puppets for the show: Mercy Allen, the Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, the Rev. George Whitefield, and, of course, The Devil. Ágnes has been making puppets for more than thirty years, developing her own distinctive style and sending her work around the world. 

The Devil is the star of the shale. Yes, shale. We stand by it.

Unlike the 2025 papier mâché Devil, this one was designed to survive the encounter with Whitefield. The handmade puppet has enormous black horns, wings, long gray hair, a red face, tiny sandals, and enough personality to make the legendary adversary considerably more charming than anyone intended.

The four puppets were created specifically to bring the Ipswich legend to life through a new puppet show at the 2026 event at First Church in Ipswich. After the show, this Devil gets to live to cause trouble another year.