Folklore and media · The Pine Barrens
Sammy Buck Giberson and the fiddle contest with the Devil
Folklore · Life dates from a modern author, unverified · Collected in the 1930s–40s
Pine Barrens fiddler Sam Giberson, known as Fiddler Sammy Buck, is the hero of a legend in which he escaped the Devil by playing a tune that came to him out of the air; folklorist Herbert Halpert collected the tale, and John McPhee retold it.
The fiddler
According to John McPhee’s book The Pine Barrens, as quoted in a 2012 blog post, Sam Giberson lived from 1808 to 1884 and was known across the pines as Fiddler Sammy Buck. McPhee also describes him as a heavy drinker, like many fiddlers of his day. No birth, death, or burial record was examined for this entry, so the dates rest on McPhee alone. Stockton University’s South Jersey Culture & History Center lists his fiddle contest with the Devil among the Pine Barrens tales that anthropologist Herbert Halpert collected in the 1930s and 1940s.
The contest
In the version McPhee recorded, as quoted in that post, it all begins with a boast. Giberson claims he can beat anyone at fiddling and dancing, the Devil included, and the Devil meets him on the road home. They take turns playing and dancing, and Giberson loses. The Devil then offers one last chance: play something the Devil has never heard, or go to hell. An unfamiliar melody seems to come to Giberson from nowhere, and he goes free. The story says Giberson told this account for the rest of his life. The lost melody is remembered in the pines as Sammy Giberson’s Air Tune, and no one has ever been able to play it.
A 2025 article from the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music gives the same outline, from a talk by historian Paulie Wenger, and presents it clearly as legend. Other versions online add a tavern, a bridge, and a contest that runs until sunrise. None of those details was found in a source that could be checked, so they are left out.
Sources and research limits
- William Kelly, “The Devil Went Down to the Jersey Pines,” Whitedeercafe, January 10, 2012 — Read September 11, 2026. It quotes McPhee’s The Pine Barrens for Giberson’s dates, his nickname, and the story of the contest. McPhee’s book itself was not examined. The post gives the book’s publisher and year in a way that does not match the standard 1968 edition.
- Mark Krajnak, “Curatorial Corner: Delving Into New Jersey’s Spooky Musical Past,” Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music, October 31, 2025 — Read; confirms the legend’s outline and presents it as folklore.
- “Pine Barrens: Life and Legends,” South Jersey Culture & History Center, Stockton University — Read for its statement that Halpert collected tales of Giberson in the 1930s–40s.
- A 2010 geocaching.com “Legends and Lore” listing was also read. It gives a full name, Samuel Gordon Giberson, and adds a New Gretna inn, a meeting at a bridge, and burial in a Little Egg Harbor woods cemetery. It cites nothing, so none of those details is used. A WikiTree genealogy profile for him could not be retrieved.