FIELD FILE · ZWAANENDAEL-MERMANLAKE & SEA MONSTERHOAX / DEBUNKED
Zwaanendael Merman
Also known as The Lewes Merman, Fiji Merman of Lewes, Monkeyfish
A shriveled, foot-long “merman” brought to Lewes by a sea captain – a 19th-century Asian sideshow curiosity the town loved too much to let go.
Delaware’s only mermaid lives in a glass case at the Zwaanendael Museum in Lewes, the state museum built in 1931 to mark 300 years since the short-lived Dutch whaling colony of Zwaanendael. About a foot long, with a grimacing, monkey-like face, clawed hands, a ribbed torso and a dried fish tail, the “Zwaanendael Merman” is one of the museum’s most famous – and most unsettling – objects. Local children have nicknamed it the “Monkeyfish.”
According to the state’s museum staff, the merman was given to a member of the Martin family of Lewes by an old sea captain, and the family kept it for many decades. When the family’s possessions were dispersed, a nephew set it aside for display, and it first went on show at the Zwaanendael Museum in 1941. Years later it nearly vanished in an estate sale – until Lewes residents and the Lewes Historical Society collected donations, bought it for $250, and in 1985 gave it to the museum, where it has stayed ever since.
The merman is not a sea creature at all but a piece of 19th-century craftsmanship. Objects like it – often called “Fiji mermaids,” after the famous specimen P. T. Barnum exhibited in the 1840s, or “Jenny Hanivers” – were made in East Asian ports and sold to Western sailors and merchants as curiosities. The museum’s curators believe it was made in China in the mid-19th century; the museum’s description lists fish, hair, ivory, oak, varnish, glass and dye, along with a shrunken monkey head. Its form also echoes the ningyo, a human-faced fish of Japanese tradition known for well over a thousand years.
That the merman is fake has never dimmed its appeal. It belongs to a long tradition of manufactured monsters, from sideshow mermaids to stitched-together “specimens,” that shaped how 19th-century audiences imagined undiscovered creatures. In a coastal town proud of its maritime history, the little merman has become a mascot – “much beloved by the town,” as one museum director put it.
- Status
- Hoax / debunked
- First reported
- 1941
- Best-known location
- Zwaanendael Museum, Lewes, Delaware
- Also called
- The Lewes Merman, Fiji Merman of Lewes, Monkeyfish
- Reported in
- Delaware
What witnesses describe
A mummified figure about a foot long, with the head, arms and upper body of a shriveled, grimacing primate-like creature, joined to a scaly fish’s tail. It rests on a blue velvet cushion inside a double glass case.
Where and when it’s seen
Not a living animal: it is on permanent display at the Zwaanendael Museum, Lewes, near Cape Henlopen at the mouth of Delaware Bay.
Notable sightings
- Late 1800s–early 1900sA sea captain’s gift Lewes, Delaware
An old sea captain presented the merman to a member of the Martin family, who kept it for decades. Accounts differ on the exact date.
- 1941First shown at the museum Zwaanendael Museum, Lewes
A Martin family nephew set the merman aside for display, and it went on exhibit at the state museum.
- 1985The town saves its merman Lewes, Delaware
When the merman was about to be sold in an estate sale, residents and the Lewes Historical Society raised $250 to buy it and donated it to the museum.
What could explain it?
- The merman is a manufactured curiosity – a composite of animal parts and craft materials, of the type made in East Asia in the 19th century for sale to Western buyers.
- Such “Fiji mermaids” were popularized by P. T. Barnum’s 1842 exhibit and were widely sold as sideshow attractions and sailors’ souvenirs.
- Sea captains’ tall tales and public fascination with human origins and missing links helped make these fakes convincing to 19th-century audiences.
Legend, culture and tourism
The merman is a Lewes icon, featured in museum programs, local tourism and roadside-attraction guides. It sits inside a museum modeled on the 17th-century town hall of Hoorn in the Netherlands, which tells the story of the Dutch Zwaanendael settlement of 1631 and of Delaware’s maritime past.
Places to visit
The state-run museum displays the merman along with exhibits on Lewes’s Dutch and maritime history.
Where it’s reported
Zwaanendael Merman in the news
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Sources
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