Not my neck of the woods (I'm over in Staffordshire, UK) but I'd be very interested to hear what people have seen. Big black cats are a genuine phenomenon over here - we've had decades of sightings on Cannock Chase literally just down the road from me, and the eyewitness accounts are remarkably consistent. Large, low-slung, jet black, tends to vanish into tree cover faster than you'd expect something that size to move.
The interesting thing is that the UK sightings often cluster around specific terrain types - dense mixed woodland near open farmland with a decent deer population. If Somerset NJ has similar landscape then that's worth noting.
Has anyone managed photos or found physical evidence like prints or livestock kills? Thats always where these cases get interesting because you can at least rule some things out. A big domestic cat and a genuine large felid leave very different tracks and the stride length alone can be quite telling. Would love to see what documentation people have gathered on this one.