Sacred Cod

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, 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 ==

, home of the second and (for a time) the third Sacred Cod {{Quote box|align=center|salign=right Humble the subject and homely the design; yet this painted image bears on its finny front a majesty greater than the dignity that art can lend to graven gold or chiselled marble. The sphere it fills is vaster than that through which its prototype careered with all the myriad tribes of the great deep. The lessons that may be learned of it are nobler than any to be drawn from what is beautiful; for this sedate and solitary fish is instinct with memories and prophecy, like an oracle. It swims symbolic in that wider sea whose confines are the limits set to the activities of human thought. It typifies to the citizens of the Commonwealth and of the world the founding of a State. It commemorates Democracy. It celebrates the rise of free institutions. It emphasizes progress. It epitomizes Massachusetts. (seen here c.1862), where the third Sacred Cod hangs in the chamber. '', 1856) of the old Representatives (now Senate) chamber, with the Sacred Cod near upper right 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 Boston's Old 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.{{NoteTag The Committee elaborated: "In 1867, for a brief space, the fish was missing from its accustomed haunt; but it soon returned, brighter than before, in a new coat of submarine motley. Again, in 1874, while the chamber was being renovated, the codfish was taken down to be repainted; and at the time [the House's 'venerable doorkeeper'] Captain Tucker measured it, finding its length to be four feet and eleven inches. He also noted that it was carved from a solid piece of wood. Since that time, a period of twenty-one years, the sacred emblem has not been profaned by mortal touch." Additionally, the Cod was painted in December 1879 (cost: 12 shillings) by Samuel Gore, older brother of future Massachusetts governor Christopher Gore and brother-in-law of Thomas Crafts Jr.; and yet again in 1965. Another source gives the Cod's length as four feet eleven and one-half inches, and its maximum diameter as ten inches. 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,' and 'Parkman'," above the chamber's clock. Since that move the Cod has faced north (that is, leftward as seen from the Speaker's rostrum), 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.{{refn|1= • 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, hake, pollock, cusk, etc., are substituted indiscriminately in place of the sacred cod." In 1912 President William Howard Taft, 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, 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 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 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. 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", 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 [from 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 [the Cod's] dignity, 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, 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 explained that the Cod had been created decades before aluminum's discovery, and suggested that the Holy Mackerel be considered for sacrifice instead. ==Notes==

;Further reading • ;Other sources cited