Sacred Cod-Cedar Herald Index

The Sacred Cod is a carved-wood effigy of an Atlantic codfish, "painted to the life", hanging in the House of Representatives chamber of Boston's Massachusetts State House"a memorial of the importance of the Cod-Fishery to the welfare of this Commonwealth" (i.e. Massachusetts, 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; 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 [which] 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.

Sacred Cod

In 1933 the Sacred Cod was briefly "Cod-napped" by editors of the Harvard Lampoon, prompting police to drag the Charles River and search an airplane landing in New Jersey. In 1968 it was again taken briefly, this time by students at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Sacred Cod

A fish figure is displayed in the State House Senate chamber as wella brass casting (sometimes called the Holy Mackerel) above its central chandelier.

Sacred Cod

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 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 [displayed] a carved and gilded codfish", and in the 19th century the nouveau riche merchant families of New England were sometimes referred to, disparagingly, to as the "codfish aristocracy".

In the late 1920s an "amusing" (as author H. P. Lovecraft 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 (or its predecessor, the House of Assembly of the Province of Massachusetts Bay).

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 Partyasked 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.