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Mystery

Mysterious Delaware – Merman Mummies, Native American Creatures and a Swamp Monster

The US state of Delaware, which has the reputation of being the most boring state in the US, is located in the United States Mid-Atlantic Region and is bordered with the US states of Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey and also has a coast on the Atlantic Ocean. Its capital is Dover and its largest city is Wilmington which is where the current President-elect Joe Biden comes from.  

The Delaware Bay and River runs alongside the state, the state is only split into three counties, the least of any other US state, the two southern most counties, Kent County and Sussex County are more agricultural than New Castle county which is more urbanized. The Northern most part of the state is part of the Piedmont plateau that includes rolling hills. Much of the state is in the Atlantic Coastal Plain, which includes flat and sandy ground but also swampy ground in some areas. The northern-third and southern two-thirds of the state include forests.  

The largest industries and sectors in the state include government, education, banking, chemical, pharmaceutical and technology, healthcare, farming and retail. The state has suffered from an industrial decline since the mid-2000s. More than half of all US publicly traded companies and well over half of Fortune 500 companies are based in the state due to its favourable corporate laws, over a million corporations are registered in the state, higher than the population of the state. The state’s main tourist attractions include historical tours, beach resorts and seasonal, music and cultural festivals.  

Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay

Now let’s move on to the strange and the unexplained of Delaware!  

There are not much visible cryptids or other oddities that Delaware can present to us perhaps due to the fact that it is a small state with a not so large population and so in reality there is not too many places the weird and unexplained can hide well from prying human eyes, but the state does offer some obscure oddities that we can check out.  

For example, we can take two mythical creatures from the Native American tribes that were the original inhabitants of the area where the state of Delaware now exists. The first one of these creatures is known as the Mhuwe from Lenape legend and is very similar to the much more well-known Wendigo, which even I have a superstitious fear of.  

Just like the Wendigo, the Mhuwe is thought to have been humans who turned to cannibalism, which then transformed them into the terrifying Mhuwe, which makes them ever more crazed to hunt for human flesh out in the wilderness. The Mhuwe is described as a giant hairy beast, in-fact they even call it an “ice giant”. It was also said that a person who went mad from the cold could also turn into one as well.  

It is believed by some that treating the Mhuwe kindly and feeding it civilized food can cure the creature and make it turn back into a human again.  

Outside of the above not much else is known about the creature and little has been recorded down about it.  

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

The other native American mythical creature is the Pukwudgie from the Native Delaware and Wampanoag Indians. They are probably better known than the Mhuwe but still relatively obscure. They are said to be little intelligent humanoid creatures, 2-3 foot in height, that can be found in woods and that they have the ability to appear and disappear at will, the Native Americans believed they were once friendly with humans but at some point, turned against them and are now always aggressive towards them, which can even be fatal.  

They are also said to be able to use magic and use bows that shoot poisonous arrows and can also create fire. They may try and lure people to their deaths and annoying a Pukwudgie can make them play horrible tricks on the human in question and also stalk them to keep causing them problems and mayhem.  

Pukwudgies may also kidnap people, attempt to push them off cliffs or attack people with short knives and spears. They may also try and use sand to blind their victims as well.  

So, one thing for sure is you don’t want to come across of one these out in the woods of Delaware.  

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

Could there be the mummified corpse of not a mermaid but a real merman in Lewes, Delaware? The piece is on display in the Zwaanendael Museum in the city and is a big part of the area’s local folklore and legend. The merman piece itself was delivered to the Lewes family in the 1800s by a Sea Captain who claimed it was a merman.  

The piece had a fish-like body and tail with humanoid arms and head, a head that looked to be screaming and also has some white thin hair on it and some little teeth in the wide-open mouth. The Lewes family kept the piece in their possession for about a century before they eventually loaned it to the musem where it is today in 1941, the last of the Lewes family died in 1985 which put the fate of the old merman on the balance, but the citizens of Lewes came together to buy the Merman for $250 and keep it on display in the museum where it remains today.  

In the Wilmington News Journal the Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs in Delaware said that the “merman” was likely just a piece that was made in China in the mid-19th Century by using a shrunken monkey head, fish, hair, ivory, glass, oak, stain, varnish and dye. Some though like to choose that it is a real merman, to keep the local legend and folklore alive. Local kids of Lewes often refer to the merman as the Monkeyfish.  

Photo by Dariusz Grosa from Pexels

Finally, one of the last things I could find in Delaware is known as the Selbyville Swamp Monster. The one downside though is that it was an admitted hoax, although the area it was performed in had been known to have strange goings on in it from time to time, such as an incident in the 1920s when hunters reported in-human screaming in the Great Cypress Swamp and then the sound of something large running towards them, the swamp is near to the town of Selbyville. Despite the monster itself being admitted as a hoax some people in the area still claimed to have continue seeing the monster, perhaps if true it’s another of those far out theories of the mind making a made-up creature into something that’s now real, or was something already there to begin with?  

The legend begun in the 1960s and the editor of the Delmarva Newspaper, Ralph Grapperhaus, admitted to making the hoax. The hoax itself was quite extensive and wasn’t just fabricated from word of mouth or word of paper, but even included him getting a friend to dress up as the apparent monster, hide in the swamp near Route 54 and jump out at passing cars, causing the legend to come to fruition.  

The friend was an actor called Fred Stevens who made the costume using an old raccoon hat he borrowed from his Aunt Dorothy, a scary monster mask, as well as holding a club. The hoax continued on for years to drive the legend further into the imagination of the local public and was also featured front page on the Delmarva Newspaper, which led to it being picked up by other news outlets, further spreading the hoax, Fred Stevens also participated in one of the hunts for the creature.  

A few months after that Fred Stevens decided to stop dressing up as the creature and jumping out at people as he begun fearing for his safety, presumably as some concerned residents had begun arming themselves, perhaps to try and shoot and kill the monster as a trophy. But it would be 23 more years later in 1987 that Fred Stevens and Ralph Grapperhaus officially came out with their hoax.  

But although the creature from the 1960s onwards up until the conclusion of the hoax… was a hoax, there is still wonder about the incident in the 1920s that hasn’t been explained as well as further incidents of unusual encounters in the swamp since the conclusion of the hoax. Perhaps some people are still dressing up as the monster from time to time in the swamp in honor of the hoax and to keep it somewhat alive, but that still does not explain everything even then.  


Well, there you have it for Delaware. Next up we shall be looking at the strange and the unexplained of the US state of Maryland.  

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