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The horse head stands for speed and strength, and is the state animal. The forward facing knight’s helmet represents sovereignty and self-government. The female allegorical figure of “Liberty,” with the “Liberty Cap” on her staff (see below). The three plows on the shield reflect the importance of agriculture to the state’s economy. Ceres, the Roman goddess of grain holding a cornucopia filled with harvested produce, symbolizing abundance. WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT NEW JERSEY’S GREAT SEAL b y G O R D O N B O N D What’s so “great” about New Wax seals were also used by France in 1688, he threw his Jersey’s “Great Seal”? ordinary people on folded Great Seal into the Thames The concept of a state seal letters as security against prying River so it could not be dates as far back as ancient eyes. A letter could not be captured and used by his Mesopotamia, when officials opened without breaking the enemies. would roll engraved cylinders seal. Seals are found in many on wet clay to mark documents. cultures around the world. NEW JERSEY AND THE From ancient Egyptian pharohs Americans inherited the GREAT SEAL OF THE UNITED to the 18th century’s European practice from Europe, STATES OF AMERICA monarchs and ecclesiastical specifically from England where With the idea of a seal of state officials, metal stamps and the Great Seal of the Realm was already part of the culture, it signet rings were used to used to symbolize the isn’t surprising that the practice imprint their emblems into wax monarch’s authority. Forgery was adopted by the United as proof that a document was was a capital offense. During States. Indeed, it was considered authentic and carried their the English Civil War, when so important that when the authority. James II attempted to flee to Continental Congress declared What’s So Great About New Jersey’s Great Seal O Gordon Bond O GardenStateLegacy.com Issue 6 O December 2009 independence from Great die. He succumbed to turned over to the Secretary of Britain on July 4, 1776, they also tuberculosis in 1788 while in the Congress, Charles Thomson, named the first committee to Frankford, Pennsylvania. an Irish-born patriot from design a seal the same day. It They brought in Francis Philadelphia. What he came up was comprised of Benjamin Hopkinson (1737-1791), a with was a conglomeration of Franklin, Thomas Jefferson Jersian with expertise in ideas from all the committees and John Adams. As heraldry. In fact, he that would become the basis for brilliant as the three would do much of the the final deasign. It was first men might have actual work. It was used by Thomson on September been, they were Hopkinson who had 16, 1782, to verify signatures on somewhat clueless put his signature on a document which authorized when it came to the Declaration of George Washington to negotiate matters of heraldry. an exchange of prisoners with Top: Thomson’s Since the seal was original sketch. England. essentially the coat of Left: The first die The design would be refined arms for the new nation, based on his and revised in 1825, 1841, 1877, they sought the advice of sketch. 1885 and finally arrived at a Pierre Eugene du Simitiere. form familiar to us today in But more about him later! Independence 1904. It took, however, six on behalf of years, three committees, and New Jersey, THE GREAT SEAL OF THE the contributions of fourteen along with Richard STATE OF NEW JERSEY men before the Congress finally Stockton, John Hart, A sense of how important the accepted a design in 1782. The John Witherspoon and Abraham concept of a seal was to the final product was actually a Clark. Hopkinson had a conducting of official state combination of elements from penchant for design and created business can be sensed by how the various designs submitted the layout of the $50 continental rapidly it was adopted by the over the period—and New paper money note as well as— newly minted governments— Jersey men played a role in that and not without some and often under less than idea creative evolution. controversy—claiming credit for conditions. On March 25, 1780 a second the American flag. When the New Jersey design committee was formed, On May 4, 1782, the third legislature met in the summer of which consisted of James Lovell committee was formed, this time 1776, as far as the British were of Boston, John Morin Scott of consisting of John Rutledge and concerned, they were an illegal New York and William Churchill Arthur Middleton, both of South body of traitors on the run. Yet Houston of South Carolina. Carolina and Elias Boudinot of they found a place to meet in Houston, however, became a New Jersey. Boudinot hailed the library of the College of Jersian when he attended the from Elizabethtown and served New Jersey at Princeton (later College of New Jersey (later as New Jersey’s representative Princeton University). There, on Princeton University) and fought to at the Continental Congress July 2, 1776, they ratified the with the American militia in as well as the body’s President first state constitution. In doing Somerset County. He went on to from 1782 to 1783. Arthur Lee of this, they officially created a real represent the county at New Virginia had replaced Rutledge, government for a real state— Jersey’s convention to ratify the although he was not officially and real governments needed a Constitution and was twice New appointed. They too sought the seal. So, the same day, they Jersey’s delegate to the assistance of someone with appointed a joint committee to Continental Congress—betwen heraldic experience, this time it take care of it. 1779 and 1781 and again in was William Barton from John Fell of Bergen, NJ 1784 to 1785. He also has the Pennsylvania. suggested for the moment they dubious distinction of being the On June 13, 1782, the designs use the coat of arms of “his first of the founding fathers to of the three committees were Excellency William Livingston, What’s So Great About New Jersey’s Great Seal O Gordon Bond O GardenStateLegacy.com Issue 6 O December 2009 Esquire.” A native of Albany, design. It was to be, “a Silver often depicted as holding might New York and a Yale-educated Seal, which is to be round, of seem odd to modern eyes. lawyer, Livingston had been two and a half Inches in The influence of Roman and behind a rabble rousing Diameter, and three-eighths of Greek mythology in Western publication in New York, The an Inch thick; and that the Arms culture was an extension of the Independent Reflector, that took shall be three Ploughs in an neoclassical movement that had on the city’s Anglican elite. Escutcheon, the Supporters emerged in the mid-18th He became a Jersian in Liberty and Ceres, and the century. The cap is a reference 1772, when he moved Crest a Horse’s Head.” to the “Phrygian cap,” a soft, red to an estate in The form was conical hat worn by priests in Elizabethtown, New dictated largely by ancient Anatolia. Its association Jersey (Liberty Hall classical rules of with liberty was likely a still stands and is a heraldry, but the confusion with a similar hat William museum) and then Livingston specific symbols found in ancient Greece called a became delegate to were chosen to “pileus.” Freed slaves were often the Continental reflect the self given one, thus making it Congress from 1774 identity of the place. emblematic of manumission. It to 1776. The three plows are would appear frequently in When the war with perhaps the most allegorical images in Europe England came in April of obvious. The vast majority of and America. 1775, he was commissioned that North America was rural in the The staff on which the Liberty October as a brigadier general 18th century. But New Jersey’s Cap is slung also has a symbolic in the militia. The agrarianism had been all history. In an age when following year, however, the more accentuated buildings rarely reached more he was elected as New thanks to it being three or four stories and church Jersey’s first non- bookended by the steeples dominated the skyline Royal Governor. He urban centers of even of cities, a simple tall replaced the Loyalist, New York and wooden pole would stand out. William Franklin, who Philadelphia. The They would be used a flagpoles had been arrested at English Army and or even to hoist a Liberty Cap as Perth Amboy and took American forces alike a defiant symbol. Patriots would the provincial seals tended to with him. Francis view the Hopkinson So with Livingston as fertile Raritan A Liberty Pole the head of the new state, there Valley as both a erected in New was a logic to Fell’s suggestion highway between York in 1770, that his coat of arms be used to them and as a drawn by Pierre Eugene du represent it, albeit temporarily. larder. During the Simitiere. In the words of the resolution, it war, both sides was just to be used “till another raided farms for shall be made.” supplies. Francis Hopkinson was also But more than that, the plows put them up and Loyalists tapped to help with the design. represent the ideal of the free would try to tear them down. As seen, he would go on to yeoman farmer standing as the Liberty’s holding of a staff, work with the designers of the foundation of republican power topped by the cap, was a scaled United States’ Great Seal.

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