Word: mermaids
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Captain Samuel Barrett Edes met his "mermaid" in Java or Batavia. Thoroughly convinced that it was a veritable mermaid, Captain Edes stole $6,000 of his ship's money, purchased the creature and left for London, where he planned to exhibit his acquisition for pecuniary returns. His ploy failed and he returned to Boston to die, with no possessions save his mermaid, which he believed in until the end. His son sold the creature to Moses Kimball, who exhibited it to P.T. Barnum...
BARNUM MEETS HIS MERMAID...
Kimball's mermaid proved to be another huge success for Barnum. In the 1840s, Barnum apparently stumbled upon the mermaid. In reality, Barnum worked for weeks to prepare his New York audience for the arrival of the creature...
Early in 1842, Moses Kimball presented Barnum with "what purported to be a mermaid." Barnum, not quite certain himself what the creature truly was, gave it to a naturalist friend for confirmation of its mermaid status. In his autobiography, Barnum describes his friend's incredulous reaction: "He could not conceive how it could have been manufactured, for he never saw a monkey with such peculiar teeth, arms, hand & c., and he never saw a fish with such peculiar fins." However, the naturalist told Barnum it must be manufactured, not because he could prove it, but because he didn't "believe...
Soon thereafter, Levi Lyman, alias Dr. Griffin, checked into a hotel in Philadelphia on Barnum's payroll. After a few days he invited his landlord to inspect the mermaid. The landlord, greatly excited, urged the British doctor to let a few of his friends, including several reporters, have a look at it. And, as Barnum smugly notes in his autobiography, everyone was convinced that it was a genuine article, "nor is this to be wondered at, since, if it was a work of art, the monkey and fish were so nicely conjoined that no human eye could detect the point...