By Amanda Hoover | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Toilet paper and rainbows of silly string dangling from trees, soap smeared on car windows and overflowing foam fountains. Eggshell shards scattered across yards and driveways with with gooey yolks sliding down window panes.

Each Halloween in New Jersey, some residents awake to find such sights on their manicured lawns and once-sparkling windows. It's the sign that someone (probably your local teens) had a good time the night before on Mischief Night — which is, apparently, a very Jersey thing.

The night of Oct. 30 has long-proved a prankster's paradise. But in recent years, more and more police departments have set curfews for those under 18, patrolling neighborhoods to make sure no cartons of eggs or rolls of toilet paper go to waste decorating the streets.

And while there seem to be fewer citations, arrests and all-around chaos on the eve of All Hallow's Eve, the night still holds a place in the local lexicon and culture, prompting the reliving of glory days, and occasionally still, pranks.

But where did this evening of mayhem originate? And why hasn't it spread far beyond the Garden State's borders?

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The map from Joshua Katz, NC State University, based on research by Bert Vaux. New Jersey is part of a small sample that calls tonight "mischief night." The red does not have a term for the night before Halloween. (Joshua Katz | North Carolina State University)

Where does Mischief Night exist?

According to a survey published in 2013 by Joshua Katz from North Carolina State University, most of Americans have no word, or knowledge, of the night before Halloween — or the mess of graffiti and toilet paper that accompany sundown on Oct. 30.

Michigan has a similar tradition aptly named "Devil's Night," but the term Mischief Night really only holds strong in New Jersey, Delaware and around Philadelphia.

Katz's survey found that Mischief Night is only the second most popular response, coming in from just under 11 percent of respondents.

Devil's Night was most recognized, with a little more than 11 percent of those surveyed giving the name. Seventy percent of people had no word for the evening, and small portions of the country labeled it Cabbage Night (1.6 percent), Goosey Night (0.37 percent), Gate Night (0.39 percent), Trick Night (0.33 percent) and Devil's Eve (0.78 percent).

Other iterations of the night include "Mat Night" in Quebec, where pranksters swap doormats from house to house (clever!) and "Gate Night" in the Midwest, where livestock is let loose to roam from open gates (this sounds both annoying and terrifying), according to LiveScience.

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Pumpkins at The Glow, a Halloween-themed carving festival in Philadelphia. (Lori M. Nichols | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

How did all this mayhem start?

Researchers have found Mischief Night dates back to at least the 1790s in England, and became a once-a-year chance for people to rebel and blow off steam.

Early court records show officials somewhat sympathized with the perpetrators, declaring "clearly no serious harm was intended" in cases taking place on the night, even if arson was committed, according to The Guardian.

But in England, Mischief Night follows Halloween on Nov. 4, rather than preceding it. At some point, a similar night of rebellion on "May Eve" (April 30) shifted to take place later in the year, to actually take place on the eve of Guy Fawkes Day, which commemorates a failed explosives attack on the House of Lords in 1605.

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In an apparent prank, soap bubbles in the Hamilton Square fountain at the intersection of Mercer Street and Nottingham Way. (2007 file photo submitted by Mike David)

So how did it become a New Jersey tradition?

Well, it's not quite clear.

Some argue that immigrants from today's United Kingdom brought the tradition across the pond, and primarily settled in areas in the northeast, from Boston to Philadelphia, leading Mischief Night to become a New Jersey practice, too.

The night was first referenced as a Halloween-adjacent tradition in the U.S. during the 1930s, according to Time.

While All Hallows Eve had been a reason to create trouble, early instances of trick-or-treating mitigated the vandals. Undeterred, they took up the antics a day early.

Others argue the Great Depression, which followed Black Tuesday on Oct. 29, 1929, led pranksters to cut loose, according to LiveScience.

Much of the trouble proved mundane, but irksome. A 1937 Boston Globe entry details children “ringing false alarms, setting fires, breaking windows, and in general doing their best to annoy people," while also engaging in a fruit and vegetable battle along the Charles River.

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A map shows how various communities around the state refer to "Mischief Night." (Dale Coye, "Dialect Boundaries in New Jersey," in American Speech, Volume 84, no. 4, pp. 414-452. Copyright, 2009, the American Dialect Society. Republished by permission of the copyrightholder, and the present publisher, Duke University Press.)

But even in Jersey, we can't pick just one name for the day.

While most of the state agrees on the appropriate term, Mischief Night, towns in Bergen County might call it "Cabbage Night," which comes from a Scottish tradition in which girls would closely examine cabbage from their neighbors' gardens to learn more about their future husbands. It is not at all clear what traits of a cabbage were positive or negative.

The term is also used in Framingham, Massachusetts, and others know the night as one where pranksters smear rotten vegetables on doorsteps (gross).

There haven't been any high-profile incidents involving cabbage in the towns, but please, if this happens to you, do send us photos.

"Goosey Night," is said in other parts of North Jersey. No one really seems able to pin the origin of that one (and knowing about Cabbage Night, maybe we don't want to know).

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Some "pranks" are far more memorable than others

Sure, there's the standard neighborhood vandalism that accompanies sundown on Oct. 30.

But others have taken the night to new extremes, resulting in serious damage and even arrests.

Here are some of New Jersey's worst incidents on record, all thanks to some mischief gone way too far.

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Camden's hottest night ever started with a big of mischief gone wrong

In 1991, a record 133 blazes involving structures, vehicles, trash and other thrust Camden into the national news spotlight.

Pranksters became arsonists in the craze, going far beyond the classic methods of hurling eggs.

More than 100 firefighters, including some from surrounding towns and counties, were staged in Camden, battling blazes overnight set largely by teenagers in abandoned buildings. Several shootings accompanied the blazes, making firefighters on the scene wary.

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A chart shows the number of alarms per day in Camden during October through November 5, from 1989 to 1991. (Camden Fire Department report on Mischief Night 1991)

"Quite often, as soon as one company completed an assignment, they were dispatched immediately to another," a report prepared following the historic incident stated.

The fire forever changed how Camden saw the night, and even years later, the city continues to prepare to prevent another devastating recurrence.

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Kin Cheung | Associated Press

What started as an online hoax brought real fear to this city.

In one incident, a Jersey City man wasn't caught creating mischief in the street, but from behind a computer.

In 2008, a 19-year-old man who posed under the name "Tom" made false posts on JCList.com stating several school girls and women in Jersey City and Bayonne were shot as part of a gang initiation.

The posts caused panic, leading callers to flood into the 911 line, police said. Security was added to local schools, and others in Hudson County even canceled class as a result.

The man was arrested and charged with causing false public alarm.

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Design from Canva

In this small South Jersey town, an amped up police presence yielded nearly two dozen arrests.

In 2007, Paulsboro police arrested 22 people for various crimes, and not all of them were teens.

People aged 15 to 53 were picked up by additional patrols that Mischief Night. Some were charged with simply breaking curfew, while others faced drug allegations or even assault of officers.

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A file photo shows a censored portion of vandalism on a Lopatcong Township barn. (File photo by Timothy E. Wynkoop)

These homeowners in rural North Jersey awoke to a shocking surprise one Halloween morning.

In 2013, a group of teens (some of whom were 18) defaced a Lopatcong Township, Warren County, barn with vulgar images and words.

Whatever was on the barn must have been pretty awful, as the only photos printed at the time are of a stick figure strictly from the neck up.

"It was essentially every vulgar thing you could find thrown onto the side of our barn," the property owner, Stephen Ruane, told LehighValleyLive.com at the time.

Four people, three adults and a juvenile, were arrested in the vandalism. Ruane estimated the property damages would cost him hundreds of dollars in re-painting costs.

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Each year, Jersey cops crack down on the mischief.

The night seem by some as a chance to unleash harmless pranks became a thorn in the side of too many.

Each year, police departments across the state announce no-tolerance policies on mischief, along with curfews for juveniles. Some have added officers to their staff, while others have tried to lure kids aware from the pranks, keeping them busy instead with free movie and bowling nights.

In an effort to bring back the night's glory days, some have even consented to the mischief with pre-determined neighbors, leading to nights of friendly fire, even if the suspense is left to be desired.

Two years ago, police in Gloucester Township, Camden County, installed 136 new surveillance cameras ahead of Mischief Night. The move left some residents weary of a Big Brother presence in their community.

Whether the zero-tolerance policies are working, or kids just have better things to do in 2000s, the holiday's heyday has passed. Someday soon, the name of our very New Jersey unofficial night may not even be recognizable by a new generation.

Alas, it seems all traditions must come to some end.

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Read more of NJ.com's spooky coverage:

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More than 5,000 hand carved pumpkins were on display over a quarter mile long path called The Glow: A JackO'Lantern Experience at Monmouth Park Race Track in Oceanport, during October 2016. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

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Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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