Sacred Cod of Massachusetts - "Cod-napping" and Other Incidents

"Cod-napping" and Other Incidents

Harvard Lampoon

In an incident now referred to as "The Cod-napping" even by State House officials, on April 26, 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 flower box equipped with decoy lilies.

According to the New York Times, 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 on them", while Boston mayor James Michael Curley 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." Police went so far as to drag the Charles River and, learning that a Lampoon editor had flown to New Jersey, had the plane searched on landing.

Eventually a mysterious telephone call sent Harvard official Charles R. Apted to West Roxbury where two men, with collars up and hats pulled down, emerged from a car to hand over the Cod (not wrapped in any flag) before speeding away. In the early hours of April 29, after repairs to three damaged fins, the Sacred Cod was re-hung in the House chamber, "six inches higher the reach of any individual. A stepladder will be needed to remove it in the future."

University of Massachusetts

Using a stepladder, on November 14, 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. It was found days later in a little-used State House hallway.

World War II

When officials of the World War II aluminum-for-defense drive, under the mistaken impression that the Cod was aluminum, asked 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 a metal fish figure (sometimes dubbed the "Holy Mackerel") above the chandelier of the Massachusetts Senate chamber be considered for sacrifice instead.