Mermaids-1

On July 5, 1716, Cotton Mather also penned a letter to the Royal Society of London. This was not odd, as the Boston naturalist often detailed his scientific findings. Yet this letter’s subject was somewhat curious — titled “a Triton”, the missive demonstrated Mather’s sincere belief in the existence of merpeople. The Royal Society of London fellow began by explaining that, until recently, he considered merpeople no more real than “centaurs or sphynxes”. Mather found myriad historical accounts of merpeople, ranging from the ancient Greek Demostratus, who witnessed a “Dried Triton . . . at ye Town of Tanagra”, to Pliny the Elder’s assertions of mermaids and tritons’ existence. Yet because “Plinyisums are of no great Reputation in our Dayes”, Mather noted, he passed off much of these ancient accounts as false. Mather’s “suspicions” of the existence of such creatures “had got more Strength given”, however, when he read sundry ancient accounts via well-respected European thinkers like Boaistuau and Bellonius.6

Still, Mather was not totally convinced, at least until February 22, 1716, when “three honest and credible men, coming in a boat from Milford to Brainford (Connecticut)”, encountered a triton. Having heard this news at first hand, Mather could only exclaim, “now at last my credulity is entirely conquered, and I am compelled now to believe the existence of a triton”. As the creature fled the men, “they had a full view of him and saw his head, and face, and neck, and shoulders, and arms, and elbows, and breast, and back all of a human shape . . . [the] lower parts were those of a fish, and colored like a mackerel”. Though this “triton” escaped, it convinced Mather of merpeople’s existence. Maintaining that his story was not false, Mather promised the Royal Society that he would continue to relay “all New occurrences of Nature”.7