The Ohio Mermaid

I enjoy looking through old newspapers, books, and periodicals, especially when they relate to the area in which I live, so I was delighted to find this article in an old Lisbon, Ohio newspaper. I was already familiar with John Bever,

the man mentioned in the article. He lived just across the Ohio River in Georgetown, PA and had several business interests in Ohio, including a gristmill and a papermill, and was one of the largest landowners in the vicinity in the early decades of the 19th century. I intend to search the courthouse records to see if he did, in fact, marry circa 1808 and to discover if there were any children born at a suitable interval. It may be assumed that any mermaid caught in the lower reaches of Little Beaver Creek would have actually been an Ohio River mermaid,who perhaps ascended the creek for the cooler, more oxygenated water, or for protection and solitude. Unfortunately, few issues of the (New) Lisbon Gazette survive, none of which contain any further accounts. [Note: Though the present town of Lisbon, OH was known as New Lisbon in that era, the masthead, prophetically, uses the current name.]