There are probably quite a few reasonable places to keep an 18-pound codfish.
A jail cell would not have made my list.
But in December 1897, James Tisdale, a doorman at the Coney Island police station, found himself in possession of a very large codfish and apparently needed somewhere safe to put it.
A police cell seemed secure enough.
It had bars.
It had a lock.
What could possibly go wrong?
As it turned out, quite a lot.
An 18-Pound Codfish Goes to Jail
According to the New York Journal of December 11, 1897, Tisdale bought an 18-pound codfish for $1 from a man at Coney Island’s Old Iron Pier.
He brought the fish back to the station house for safekeeping.
That is where Sergeant Zimmerman entered the story. Zimmerman apparently suggested putting the codfish in one of the jail cells.
So Tisdale did exactly that. He placed the fish in a cell, locked the door and went about his business.
At this point, the codfish may have been the safest fish in Coney Island.
For approximately one hour.
The Prisoner Vanishes
When Tisdale later inspected the cells, he found something unexpected.
One of the doors was open.
The codfish was gone.
This was not a case of an unusually determined fish making a break for freedom. Tisdale believed somebody inside the station house had taken it. He reported to Captain Collins that he had been robbed.
In the police station.
Of an 18-pound codfish.
Understandably, this required some explanation.
Tisdale told the captain exactly what had happened: he bought the fish that morning, brought it to the station, locked it in a cell on Sergeant Zimmerman’s advice and returned an hour later to find both the door open and the fish missing.
He wanted whoever had taken it to give it back.
That seems reasonable.
Captain Collins was less interested in recovering the fish.
Apparently Guarding a Dead Fish Was Part of the Job
Captain Collins had a different concern.
If Tisdale could not keep someone from stealing a dead fish out of a police cell, how exactly was he supposed to keep track of live prisoners?
The newspaper reported Collins saying: “If a doorman cannot watch a dead fish and prevent any person from stealing it in the station house, how can he take care of live prisoners?”
It is difficult to argue with the logic. It is also difficult not to laugh.
Collins was angry enough to order that a request be sent asking for Tisdale to be transferred to another station on the grounds of incompetence.
Imagine explaining that on your next assignment.
Reason for transfer: Lost custody of codfish.
And Then Everybody Heard About It
Unfortunately for Tisdale, the missing fish did not remain a quiet little station-house embarrassment.
The story got around.
The Journal reported that everybody on Coney Island seemed to know about Tisdale’s codfish and that the other policemen at the station kept teasing him about it.
By then, Tisdale had apparently had enough.
The paper said he was waiting patiently for his transfer and hoping it would come soon. The article never tells us who stole the fish. It never tells us whether Tisdale got it back.
And it certainly does not tell us what ultimately happened to the codfish.
Which leaves one fairly obvious possibility.
Somewhere around Coney Island in December 1897, somebody may have enjoyed a one-dollar, 18-pound dinner that had briefly been held in police custody.
The Original Headline Makes It Even Better
Old newspapers occasionally produced headlines that simply cannot be improved.
This is one of them: LOCKED CODFISH IN A CELL.
And underneath: Some One Stole It and Doorman Tisdale Is Threatened With Transfer.
That is the entire story right there.
A man bought a fish.
The fish went to jail.
Someone stole the fish from jail.
And the man responsible for guarding it nearly got transferred because he had failed to maintain custody of a dead cod.
No grand historical event.
No famous people.
Just one strange little incident that happened at the Coney Island police station in 1897 and was ridiculous enough for the newspaper to preserve it for us.
More than a century later, we still do not know who took the fish.
Personally, I’d still like to know who ate the evidence.
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