A Mermaid Found in Delaware.
Date: January 20 1880
Newspaper published in: St. Louis, Mo.
(From the Breakwater (Del.) Light)
On Tuesday of this week Capt. RAYMOND, keeper of Life-Saving Station No. 3, found on the beach what he supposed to be a mermaid which had been washed up from the sea. Capt. RAYMOND describes it as being about the size of a six year old boy, and to the middle or waist of the body resembling a boy in every particular. He says that its face, head, neck, arms and bust, as well as its hair, were similar in appearance to those of a human being. There were no fingers on the hands, but a coarse, moppy hair like the frizzled end of a whalebone, supplied their place. The lower portion of the body, from the middle or waist downward, resembles that of a shark, the tail being covered with a hairy substance similar to that of the hands. Capt. FOWLER says that the “tarnal critter” came there for no good, and it betokens a terrible shipwreck and fearful loss of life, which is soon to happen on that part of the coast.
