The Sacred Cod is a carved-wood
effigy
An effigy is a sculptural representation, often life-size, of a specific person or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certain ...
of an
Atlantic cod
The Atlantic cod (: cod; ''Gadus morhua'') is a fish of the family Gadidae, widely consumed by humans. It is also commercially known as '' cod'' or ''codling''.[House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...]
chamber of Boston's
Massachusetts State House
The Massachusetts State House, also known as the Massachusetts Statehouse or the New State House, is the List of state capitols in the United States, state capitol and seat of government for the Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, lo ...
"a memorial of the importance of the
Cod-Fishery to the welfare of this Commonwealth"
(i.e.
Massachusetts
Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...
, of which cod is officially the "historic and continuing symbol").
The Sacred Cod has gone through as many as three incarnations over three centuries: the first
(if it really existedthe authoritative source calling it a "prehistoric creature of tradition")
was lost in a 1747 fire; the second disappeared during the
American Revolution
The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...
; and the third, installed in 1784, is the one seen in the House chamber today.
"Sacred Cod" is not a formal name but a nickname which appeared in 1895, soon after the carving was termed "the sacred emblem" by a House committee appointed "to investigate the significance of the emblem
hich
Ij () is a village in Golabar Rural District of the Central District in Ijrud County, Zanjan province, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq ...
has kept its place under all administrations, and has looked upon outgoing and incoming legislative assemblies, for more than one hundred years". Soon ''sacred cod'' was being used in reference to actual codfish as well, in recognition of the creature's role in building Massachusetts's prosperity and influence since early colonial times.
In 1933 the Sacred Cod was briefly "Cod-napped" by editors of the ''
Harvard Lampoon
''The Harvard Lampoon'' is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 by seven undergraduates at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Overview
The ''Harvard Lampoon'' publication was founded in 1876 by seven undergraduate ...
'', prompting police to
drag the
Charles River
The Charles River (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ), sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles, is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, Hopkinton to Boston along a highly me ...
and search an airplane landing in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
.
In 1968 it was again taken briefly, this time by students at the
University of Massachusetts Boston
The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a Public university, public US-based research university. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus University of Ma ...
.
A fish figure is displayed in the State House
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
chamber as wella
brass
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...
casting (sometimes called the Holy Mackerel) above its central chandelier.
Significance

Codfishing was the first industry practiced by Europeans in Massachusetts, and it is said that the colony's first export was a cargo of fish.
Thus the codfish has been an important
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
symbol for centuries, its image appearing on many early coins, stamps, corporate and government seals, and insignia such as the early crest of the ''
Salem Gazette''.
In 1743 a prominent
Salem businessman built a mansion in which "the end of every
stair in his spacious hall
isplayeda carved and gilded codfish",
and in the 19th century the nouveau riche merchant families of New England were sometimes referred to, disparagingly, as the "codfish aristocracy".
In the late 1920s an "amusing" (as author
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Born in Provi ...
termed it)
codfish emblem appeared briefly, "totem-like",
on
Massachusetts license plates.
History

What is now called the Sacred Cod has hung for three centuriesthough with interruptions, and in at least two (and possibly three) successive incarnationsin the chamber of the
Massachusetts House of Representatives
The Massachusetts House of Representatives is the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court, the State legislature (United States), state legislature of Massachusetts. It is composed of 160 members elected from 14 counties each divided into ...
(or its predecessor, the House of Assembly of the
Province of Massachusetts Bay
The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in New England which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of Eng ...
).
First Cod
Of the Cod's first incarnation, the Committee on History of the Emblem of the Codfish (appointed by the House in 1895) wrote:
Assuming it existed and whatever its origin (the Committee continued), when the State House burned in 1747 "this prehistoric creature of tradition... doubtless went up in a whirl of smoke which still clouds its history to the peering vision of the antiquarian".
Second Cod
A second Cod appeared sometime between 1748 (when the State House was rebuilt) and 1773 (when
Thomas Crafts Jr. billed the Province of Massachusetts Bay, "To painting Codfish, 15 shillings").
But within a few years, the Committee wrote, the second Cod
The Committee found "good reason to believe that this missing fish... was carved by one John Welch, a Boston patriot".
Third Cod
The third Cod was installed in 1784 (the Committee continued) after Representative
John Rowenamesake of
Rowes Wharf and "a leading spirit in the stirring scenes that led up to the famous '
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a seminal American protest, political and Mercantilism, mercantile protest on December 16, 1773, during the American Revolution. Initiated by Sons of Liberty activists in Boston in Province of Massachusetts Bay, colo ...
asked leave "to hang up the representation of a Cod Fish in the room where the House sit, as a memorial of the importance of the Cod-Fishery to the welfare of this Commonwealth, as had been usual formerly.... And so the emblem was suspended" in the old State House once again, and this Cod (which Rowe may have underwritten personally) is the one extant today.
In 1798 the Cod was moved to the Representatives chamber in the
new State House,
where it originally hung over the Speaker's desk. In the 1850s it was moved to the rear of the chamber.
Committee on History of the Emblem of the Codfish

On January2, 1895the House's last day of business before relocating to a new chamber in the same building
Accordingly, after "nearly two months of painstaking research and investigation" the three-member Committee on History of the Emblem of the Codfish submitted its report, and after debating "at length" the House ordered "immediate removal of the ancient 'representation of a codfish' from its present position in the chamber recently vacated by the House, and to cause it to be suspended... in this chamber...."
A committee of fifteen was escorted by the Sergeant-at-Arms to the old House chamber, where the Sacred Cod was lowered by the assistant doorkeeper and wrapped in an American flag, then placed on a bier and borne by House messengers to the new House chamber, where the assembled Representatives rose in applause.
After repainting by
Walter M. Brackett, it was hung where it remains today:
"between the two sets of central columns, and under the names '
Motley
Motley is the traditional costume of the court jester, the motley fool, or the arlecchino character in ''commedia dell'arte''. The harlequin wears a patchwork of red, green and blue diamonds that is still a fashion motif.
The word ''motley'' is ...
,' and '
Parkman',"
above the chamber's clock.
The Cod has faced north (that is, leftward as seen from the Speaker's rostrum) since its installation in the House chamber in 1895, though after being repainted in 1965 it was, at least temporarily, rehung the other way.
"Sacred Cod" nickname

The Committee's report refers at one point to "the sacred emblem",
and while it was working a poem appeared in the ''Boston Globe'' referring to the carving as "the Sacred Cod".
Within a few years authors, journalists, and advertiserseven those far from New Englandwere using the term routinely.
The phrase quickly came to refer not only to the wooden Cod in the State House but to actual cod from the sea as well, especially as an item of commerce.
At the 1908 convention of the Retail Grocers of the United States, held in Boston, one delegate recalled
Two years later the New Hampshire Board of Agriculture, bemoaning the counterfeiting of foodstuffs "famous for their distinctive properties or superior quality", warned that "
haddock
The haddock (''Melanogrammus aeglefinus'') is a saltwater ray-finned fish from the Family (biology), family Gadidae, the true cods. It is the only species in the Monotypy, monotypic genus ''Melanogrammus''. It is found in the North Atlantic Oce ...
,
hake
Hake is the common name for fish in the Merlucciidae family of the northern and southern oceans and the Phycidae family of the northern oceans. Hake is a commercially important fish in the same taxonomic order, Gadiformes, as cod and haddo ...
,
pollock
Pollock or pollack (pronounced ) is the common name used for either of the two species of North Atlantic ocean, marine fish in the genus ''Pollachius''. ''Pollachius pollachius'' is referred to as "pollock" in North America, Ireland and the Unit ...
,
cusk, etc., are substituted indiscriminately in place of the sacred cod."
In 1912 President
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) served as the 27th president of the United States from 1909 to 1913 and the tenth chief justice of the United States from 1921 to 1930. He is the only person to have held both offices. ...
, in Boston, addressed a journalists' banquet in New York City "by long distance telephone from the home of the sacred cod".
And in 1922 historian
Samuel Eliot Morison
Samuel Eliot Morison (July 9, 1887 – May 15, 1976) was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history and American history that were both authoritative and popular. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and tau ...
, emphasizing fishing's vital role in the colonial economy, wrote that "Puritan Massachusetts derived her ideals from a sacred book; her wealth and power from the sacred cod."
The famous doggerel poking fun at Boston's
Brahmins
Brahmin (; ) is a ''Varna (Hinduism), varna'' (theoretical social classes) within Hindu society. The other three varnas are the ''Kshatriya'' (rulers and warriors), ''Vaishya'' (traders, merchants, and farmers), and ''Shudra'' (labourers). Th ...
paraphrases an earlier poem now little remembered:
"Cod-napping" and other incidents
''Harvard Lampoon''

In an incident now referred to as "The Cod-napping" by State House officials,
on the evening of April26, 1933, members of the ''
Harvard Lampoon
''The Harvard Lampoon'' is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 by seven undergraduates at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Overview
The ''Harvard Lampoon'' publication was founded in 1876 by seven undergraduate ...
'' (the Harvard College humor magazine) entered the House of Representatives gallery, cut down the Cod, and carried it away in an unusually large florist's box equipped with protruding decoy lilies.
which reckoned the Cod's value to be "something less than nothing. As an object of art it is worthless"Massachusetts officials were "shocked into a condition bordering on speechlessness" by the theft,
"some legislators holding that it would be sacrilege to transact business without the emblem of the Commonwealth looking down upon them."
(Nonetheless, at the appointed time "
ouseSpeaker
Saltonstall">everettSaltonstall looked mournfully at the vacant place and then banged the gavel."
Barnstable County offered the loan of its own codfish emblem for the duration of the crisis.)
Meanwhile, Boston mayor
James Michael Curley
James Michael Curley (November 20, 1874 – November 12, 1958) was an American Democratic politician from Boston, Massachusetts. He served four terms as mayor of Boston between 1914 and 1955. Curley ran for mayor in every election for which he ...
received a telephone message: "Tell the Mayor that when the Sacred Cod is returned it will be wrapped in the municipal flag, now flying in front of City Hall. Try and catch us when we cop the flag.
Lafayette Mulligan, we are here."
"Indignant" police dragged the
Charles River
The Charles River (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ), sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles, is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, Hopkinton to Boston along a highly me ...
and, acting on a tip that a ''Lampoon'' editor had flown to New Jersey with the Cod, had the plane searched on landing; the tip turned out to be a red herring.
Detectives followed "scores" of clues, one of which took them to a
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
box factory and from there to "collegiate circles"a "6-foot youth" (tall enough to reach the wires suspending the Cod) had reportedly bought lilies from a Harvard-area florist before being seen in the State House on the day of the theftand several Harvard College students were questioned by the school's dean.
"So much general interest was provoked that ''
The Boston Transcript'' indulged in two columns of news, hearsay, and speculation upon the missing emblem," the ''Times'' further reported,
later referring to the Cod as Boston's
Palladium
Palladium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1802 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas (formally 2 Pallas), ...
.
Eventually a mysterious telephone call directed Harvard official
Charles R. Apted to
West Roxbury
West Roxbury is a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, bordered by Roslindale and Jamaica Plain to the northeast, the village of Chestnut Hill and the town of Brookline to the north, the city of Newton to the northwest, t ...
, where he was met by an automobile which he followed into some woods; there two young men, with collars up and hatbrims down, handed him the Cod (not wrapped in any flag) before speeding away.
In the early hours of April29, after repairs to three damaged fins, the Sacred Cod was re-hung in the House chamber, "six inches
5cm 5cm may refer to:
* The 5 centimeters band, a radio frequency band in the United States
* An imprint of Hong Kong clothing company I.T
* 5 Centimeters Per Second, a Japanese anime film
* ''5 cm'' (film), an Indonesian film
{{Letter-NumberC ...
higher
hanthe reach of any individual. A stepladder will be needed to remove it in the future."
University of Massachusetts
Using a stepladder, on November14, 1968, students at the new
Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts took the Sacred Cod in protest of perceived legislative indifference to their school.
("Sacred Cod gone from House
perch
Perch is a common name for freshwater fish from the genus ''Perca'', which belongs to the family Percidae of the large order Perciformes. The name comes from , meaning the type species of this genus, the European perch (''P. fluviatilis'') ...
", the ''Boston Globe'' alerted its readers.)
[
]
It was found days later in a little-used State House hallway.
Greyhound replacement proposal
In 1937 Representative
John B. Wenzler offered a facetious proposal "that the sacred cod be immediately removed
rom the House chamber and a greyhound substituted in its place, as the 1937 Legislature has shown itself to be completely under the power of the
dog track operators."
Apted (whom the ''Boston Globe'' referred to as "Harvard Cop No.1") wrote to Wenzler: "As one who is, and was, very much interested in preserving
he Cod'sdignity, and furthermore having held it in my arms... I most respectfully ask a favor, that is: If the greyhound be substituted, that I be presented with the cod in order that it may be preserved for the future of young Americans."
World War II
After the House of Representatives moved to its new chamber in 1895, the
Massachusetts Senate
The Massachusetts Senate is the upper house of the Massachusetts General Court, the bicameral state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Senate comprises 40 elected members from 40 single-member senatorial districts in the st ...
, which took over the old House chamber, incorporated a fish figure
(often dubbed the ''Holy Mackerel'')
into the chandelier there, as a reminder of the Sacred Cod the Representatives had taken with them.
When officials of the World War II aluminum-for-defense drivemisinformed that the Sacred Cod was aluminumasked that it be donated to the war effort, House Speaker
Christian Herter
Christian Archibald Herter (March 28, 1895December 30, 1966) was an American diplomat and Republican politician who was the 59th governor of Massachusetts from 1953 to 1957 and United States Secretary of State from 1959 to 1961. He served as p ...
explained that the Cod had been created decades before aluminum's discovery, and suggested that the Holy Mackerel be considered for sacrifice instead.
Notes
Sources and further reading
;Further reading
*
;Other sources cited
{{coord, 42, 21, 29.4, N, 71, 3, 49.3, W, type:landmark_region:US, display=title
1784 sculptures
Animal monuments
Sculptures of fish in the United States
Landmarks in Boston
Massachusetts culture
Monuments and memorials in Boston
Wooden sculptures in Massachusetts
Animal sculptures in Massachusetts