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 The Seal of Connecticut 
 
 By SIMEON E. BALDWIN, LL.D. 
 
 Reprinted from 
 
 Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, 
 
 Volume Vin 
 
 NEW HAVEN 
 
 1914 
 
7 
 
The Seal of Connecticut 
 
 By SIMEON E. BALDWIN, LL.D. 
 
 Reprinted from 
 
 Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, 
 
 Volume Vni 
 
 NEW HAVEN 
 
 1914. 
 
THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Bj Simeon E. Baldwin, LL.D. 
 
 [Read November 22, 1909.] 
 
 It is dijSicult for us to enter into the conception of the nature 
 of a seal, which was common to all Englishmen in the seven- 
 teenth century. To them, and to their forefathers for many 
 generations, it was the most solemn form of authenticating any 
 written expression of will, which was intended to alter legal 
 relations. 
 
 We may not unfairly say that the legal value of a seal in 
 any community is in inverse proportion to the education and 
 intelligence of its people. In ages when hardly any except 
 the priest or monk could write, and property was mainly 
 massed in the hands of a few, the seal afforded a simple and 
 generally effectual method of showing that a conveyance, a 
 charter, or any other legal document, came from the hand, or 
 with the approval, of those in whose names it might profess 
 to speak. 
 
 Every great land-owner in England, by a century or two 
 after the Norman conquest, had his own coat of arms. His 
 seal was inscribed with this. No one, not of his name and 
 family, could lawfully use it. He took good care that no one 
 else should have an opportunity to do so, by keeping it in some 
 safe and secret place, or perhaps carrying it about upon his 
 person. 
 
 The Crown had its great and its privy seal. The ecclesias- 
 tical and municipal corporations had theirs. 
 
 In the time of Edward I, every freeman and some of the 
 villeins had a seal.* A deed of land, according to English law, 
 until long after the settlement of New England, was well exe- 
 
 * Bi^lwtone'&i. .CcVnipi'eiltaries, II, 305. 
 
THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 83 
 
 cuted if it bore the seal of him whose grant it was, though 
 not his signature. Without a seal, or a legal substitute for it, 
 a conveyance of land, though signed, is still in Connecticut no 
 deed, and ineffectual to pass full title. 
 
 So late as the latter half of the eighteenth century. Sir 
 William Blackstone declared, in his Commentaries on the Laws 
 of England,* that every corporation not only could, but must 
 have a common seal, for, he continued, it ^ 'being an invisible 
 body, cannot manifest its intentions by any personal act or 
 oral discourse : it therefore acts and speaks only by its common 
 seal." 
 
 By the great seal of the State, the first and greatest of 
 corporations, all important public acts were attested, and with- 
 out its use, it hardly seemed to the popular mind, in early 
 English history, to be possible to administer and uphold the 
 government. When James II, driven from the throne of Eng- 
 land, made his first attempt to escape from the kingdom, his 
 last act, in crossing the Thames, was to throw the great seal 
 overboard, in the hope, no doubt, that proceedings to displace 
 him would thus be brought to a full stop.f 
 
 The great seal of a foreign power has always been recognized 
 as sufficiently authenticating its official acts. The seal is said 
 to prove itself. Every sovereign is supposed to be familiar 
 with the appearance of the great seal of every other sovereign ; 
 and the same familiarity is imputed to his courts of justice. 
 
 In 1663, when Governor Stuyvesant was at odds with the 
 Colony of Connecticut as to the Dutch title to some of the 
 Long Island towns, he urged the directors of the 'New ISTether- 
 land company to procure from the States-General a patent or 
 letter defining the limits of the Dutch possessions in America, 
 and recommended that it be "sealed with their High Mighti- 
 nesses' Great seal, at which an Englishman commonly gapes as 
 at an idol." This, he wrote, would help matters complicated 
 by "the unrighteous, stubborn, impudent and pertinacious 
 proceedings of the English at Hartford.^J 
 
 * I, 475. 
 
 t Macaulay's Hist, of England, III, 293, London Ed. of 1863. 
 
 t Documents relating to the Col. Hist, of N. Y., II, 488, 484. 
 
84: THE SEAL OF CONITECTICUT. 
 
 Connecticut was settled under authority of those who had 
 obtained grants from a public corporation under the name of 
 '^the Council established at Plymouth in the County of Devon 
 for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing of ^ew Eng- 
 land in America," which was incorporated by the Crown on 
 November 3, 1620. The charter particularly provided that 
 the forty persons named as the original members and "their 
 Successors shall have and enjoy for ever a Common Seale, to 
 be engraven according to their Discretions; and that it shall 
 be lawfull for them to appoint whatever Seale or Scales they 
 shall think most meete and necessary, either for their Uses, 
 as they are one united Body incorporate here, or for the publick 
 of their Govemour and ministers of 'New England aforesaid, 
 whereby the Incorporation may or shall seale any Manner of 
 Instrument touching the same Corporation, and the Manors, 
 Lands, Tenements, Eents, Eeversions, Annuities, Heredita- 
 ments, Goods, Chatties, Affaires, and any other Things belong- 
 ing unto, or in any wise appertaininge, touching, or concerning 
 the said Corporation and plantation in and by these our Letters- 
 Patents, as aforesaid, founded, erected, and established."* 
 
 In a subsequent clause the corporation was empowered to 
 constitute and discharge any "Governors, Officers, and Minis- 
 ters," as it should think fit, and to make laws of government 
 for the plantation, civil and criminal, as near as might be like 
 those of England. It published, in 1622, a "Brief Kelation 
 of the Discovery and Plantation of !N'ew England," addressed 
 to the Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles I), who while in 
 his teens, by approving the suggestion of Captain John Smith, 
 was the first to give the country that name, in any authoritative 
 way.f In this the President and Council stated their purpose 
 to be to set up a general government in New England at some 
 
 * Poore, Charters and Constitutions, t, 923-5. 
 
 t The first printed work in which this name was used, instead of the 
 old term, "North Virginia," was Capt. John Smith's "Description of New 
 England," published in 1616. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 4th Series, III, 96. 
 Smith was the undoubted originator of the name New England, "but," 
 he says in his "Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters of New Eng- 
 land or anywhere" (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 3d Series, III, 1, 20) "Mali- 
 
THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 85- 
 
 convenient place, and parcel out the territory into several grand 
 divisions or "counties." Each of these was to be under a chief 
 head, with a staff of officers, such as a steward, comptroller, 
 and treasurer ; and each subdivided into manors and lordships. 
 It had also, so the pamphlet proceeds, been "provided that all 
 cities in that territory, and other inferiour towns where trades- 
 men are in any numbers, shall be incorporate and made bodies 
 politic, to govern their affairs and people, as it shall be found 
 most behoveful for the publick good of the same."* 
 
 On March 19, 1628, the Council, by a deed under its com- 
 mon seal to Sir Henry Kosewell and five others, and their heirs 
 and associates forever, made a grant of lands for a settlement 
 on Massachusetts Bay. They, having first associated twenty 
 others with them, obtained the charter from the Crown, of 
 March 4, 1629 (N. S.) under which Winthrop and his company 
 set up the colony of Massachusetts. 
 
 Robert, Earl of Warwick, was the President of the Council 
 at least as early as January 13, 1630 (N. S.),t and we have 
 the high authority of Dr. Douglass and Dr. TrumbuUi: for 
 the assertion that in that year the Council conveyed to him, 
 by a grant soon afterwards confirmed by a royal patent, the 
 territory which on March 19, 1631, he transferred by a deed 
 under his own seal to Lord Say and Seal and ten others, and 
 their heirs and associates forever. 
 
 cious minds amongst Sailers and others drowned that name with the echo 
 of Nusconcus, Canaday, and Penaquid, till at my humble sute, our most 
 gracious King Charles, then Prince of Wales, was pleased to confirme it by 
 that title." In the petition to the King, of March 3, 1620 (N. S.) on which 
 the patent to the Council of Devon was issued, the petitioners ask first 
 of all, "that the territories where yo^ peticSners makes their plantacon 
 may be caled (as by the Prince His Highnes it hath bin named) New 
 England." Documents relating to the Colonial History of N. Y., Ill, 2. 
 Smith had been permitted to present to the Prince, in 1614, a copy of 
 his journal during his voyage northwards in the spring of that year, and 
 of his map of the coast above Cape Cod. Palfrey's Hist, of N". E., I, 94. 
 
 * Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 2d Series, IX, 22, 23. 
 
 t He then signed a patent in favor of the Plymouth settlers, in which 
 he is described as President. 
 
 $ Trumbull, Hist., I, 547; Douglass' Summary, II, 160. 
 
86 THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 The Council had a regular clerk, but its records have not 
 been preserved (although copies of part of them are extant),* 
 and it is denied by some later historians that the Earl had any 
 title to convey, t 
 
 To me it seems more reasonable to accept Douglass' and 
 TrumbulFs statement, justified as it is by repeated declara- 
 tions of our General Court during the seventeenth century. $ 
 
 It is also supported by a letter from John Humfrey sent 
 from London to Isaac Johnson § in Massachusetts, under date 
 of December 9, 1630, in which is found this passage : "My lord 
 of Warw. will take a Patent of that place you writ of for 
 himselfe, & so wee may bee bold to doe there as if it were our 
 owne."|l It is at least a fair surmise that Johnson had pre- 
 viously written to Humfrey that the region of the Connecticut 
 river was one adapted to an English settlement, and that in 
 consequence of this news the Earl of Warwick had determined 
 to obtain from the Council for JSTew England a patent embrac- 
 ing it, to himself, but really for the benefit of those of his 
 Puritan friends who were then contemplating a removal to 
 !N'ew England. 
 
 Thomas Lechford, an attorney, who would not be apt to 
 use words loosely, in his "Plaine Dealing," written in 1641, 
 says of the Saybrook and Hartford settlements : "These planta- 
 tions have a Patent."T[ 
 
 Two years later. Parliament put the Earl of Warwick at 
 the head of a commission of six Lords and twelve commoners, 
 having jurisdiction over all plantations and islands occupied 
 under authority of the Crown. Early in 1647, the Earl, as 
 Governor in chief over foreign plantations, the Earl of Man- 
 chester and Viscount Say and Seal, speaking for this com- 
 
 * Massachusetts and its Early History, 162; Records of the Council for 
 N. E., Cambridge 1867, 8. 
 
 t Massachusetts and its Early History, 148; Johnston, Hist., of Conn., 
 8, 109. 
 
 $Hinman, Letters, &c., 40, 43, 59; Trumbull, Hist, of Conn., I, 380, 
 643. 
 
 § Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 4th Series, VI, 4. 
 
 II Mr. Johnson had died more than two months before this was written. 
 
 H Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 3d Series, III, 97. 
 
THE SEAL or CONNECTICUT. 87 
 
 mission, wrote to the colony of Connecticut recognizing its 
 ^^jurisdiction" to administer justice, and stating that the 
 committee did not purpose to "restrain the bounds of your 
 jurisdiction to a narrower compass than is held forth by your 
 letters-patents.'^* 
 
 This seems quite a plain recognition of its possession of 
 what the two principal parties to the grant of March 19, 1631, 
 the grantor and the ranking grantee, considered a proper title 
 for the purposes of civil government. It claimed one by virtue 
 of its purchase from Colonel Fenwick of the Saybrook proper- 
 ties, and from no other source. 
 
 The evidence that the Earl executed the deed to Lord Say 
 and Seal and his associates is all that can fairly he required; 
 and in that he professes to be the owner of the lands, and to 
 convey them with "all jurisdictions, rights, and royalties, lib- 
 erties, freedoms, immunities, powers, privileges, franchises, 
 preeminences, and commodities whatsoever, which the said 
 Eobert, Earl of Warwick, now hath or had, or might use, exer- 
 cise and enjoy, in or within any part or parcel thereof.^f It 
 is certain also that those who received the grant, thus pur- 
 porting to pass jura regalia, thought that they could appoint 
 a Governor of the territory which it embraced; for in July, 
 1635, five of them "in their own names and in the name 
 of . . the rest of the company," signed a commission con- 
 stituting John Winthrop, Jr., "Governor of the river Connect- 
 icut with the places adjoining thereunto." This document they 
 signed individually, affixing their own particular seals, all 
 impressed on the same piece of wax.t 
 
 The Warwick deed or patent of 1631 was, in a measure, a 
 family transaction. The Earl's family name was Eobert Eich. 
 One of the grantees, "the right honorable Lord Eich," was 
 his eldest son, and another, "Sir N"athaniel Eich, Knt," a near 
 relation. § "Lord Brook" was Baron Brooke of Warwick castle. 
 It would be natural for the Earl to hand the deed, as soon as 
 
 * Hubbard, Hist, of New England, Chap. LV. 
 
 t Trumbull, Hist of Conn., I, 525. 
 
 t Ibid., 527. 
 
 § See his will in Waters' Genealogical Gleanings, II, 872. 
 
88 THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 it was executed, to his son and heir. Such papers were then 
 not recorded in any public registry of lands. The Council 
 for 'New England surrendered its charter to the Crown in 1635 ; 
 the civil war soon broke out, with all its work of wreck; and 
 the family of the Earl became extinct in the next century. 
 Under such circumstances it is not surprising that a copy of a 
 copy of this Warwick deed is all that our State archives have to 
 show to support our claim of a paper title prior to the charter 
 of 1662. 
 
 It is important to observe that the Earl of Warwick had the 
 common seal of the Council for New England in his posses- 
 sion for a considerable period, and at least as late as 1633, 
 this being apparently against the will of a number of its mem- 
 bers.* He could thus have executed, at any time, a deed in its 
 name to some third party, simply by affixing the seal; and 
 then taken a reconveyance from the latter to himself. The 
 Council being a corporation and not a directing body within 
 a corporation, the law made those who attended any meeting 
 regularly appointed (though only one or two might thus be 
 present), a quorum to transact business. At the meeting of 
 l^ovember 4, 1631, held at Warwick House in London, at which 
 but two were present, the Earl of Warwick and Sir Ferdinando 
 Gorges, several important grants of lands were ordered. It 
 is by no means improbable that at some of the regularly called 
 meetings, which at this time were commonly held at Warwick 
 House, the Earl may have been the only member present. 
 
 His deed to Lord Say and Seal and his associates was wit- 
 nessed by two persons, one of whom was Walter Williams. A 
 man named Williams was in his employment in 1632, and 
 apparently had charge for the Earl of the corporate seal of the 
 Council, t Probably he was the attesting witness, and if, as 
 conjectured, there was an intermediate deed from the Earl, as 
 President of the Council, under the corporate seal, to a dummy, 
 who was to and did reconvey to the Earl personally, no one 
 
 * Massachusetts and its Early History, 147 ; Proceedings of the Anti- 
 quarian Society, 1867, Vol. IV, 110-113; Winsor, Narrative, &c., Hist., Ill, 
 309. 
 
 t Winsor, Narr. Hist., Ill, 370. 
 
THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 89 
 
 could have been more likely than this Mr. Williams to be 
 selected for this office nor, when the two preliminary deeds 
 had been made, to attest the third, by which the estate thus 
 transmitted through him was made over to the real purchasers.* 
 
 The grantees under the deed from the Earl had a regular 
 clerk, as appears from a letter of Lord Say and Seal to Gov- 
 ernor Winthrop, dated December 11, 1661. In this he enclosed 
 a letter to the Earl of Manchester, then Lord Chamberlain, 
 requesting him to tell the Governor where he could speak with 
 Mr. Jesup, "who," he adds, "when we had the patent, was 
 our clerk and he, I believe, is able to inform you best about 
 it, and I have desired my lord to wish him so to do. I do 
 think he is now in London.''! 
 
 In 1636 William Jesup is given a legacy in the will of Sir 
 !N"athaniel Rich of a kind indicating that he was in close per- 
 sonal relations with the testator. 
 
 In April, 1656, Bulstrode Whitelock records an official con- 
 ference with the Swedish ambassador, attended also by "Mr. 
 Jessop, one of the clerks of the Council," — that is, of the Coun- 
 cil of State under the Protector.^ On April 10, 1660, "Wil- 
 liam Jessop, Esq." was chosen clerk of the House of Commons 
 of the Convention Parliament. § It is probable that he was the 
 former clerk of the Council and also the same man w^ho had 
 been clerk of the Warwick patentees. The Earl of Manchester, 
 who was the presiding officer of the Convention House of Peers, 
 was a son-in-law of the Earl of Warwick; closely associated 
 with him during the civil war;|| and one of the commission 
 under his presidency for the government of foreign plantations. 
 
 One must not forget, in studying the documents of that 
 century, that the law of moneyed corporations was still in its 
 infancy. Such bodies did not always act, in making grants, 
 by their officers, appointed for that purpose, under their com- 
 
 * A "Mr. Walter Williams" at about this time owned houses in Bristol, 
 Waters, Genealogical Gleanings, I, 565. 
 
 t Trumbull, Hist., I, 547. 
 
 $ Memorials, Oxford Ed., IV, 243. William Jessop filled the same posi- 
 tion in 1653 and 1654. Whitelock, Journal of the Swedish Embassy, II, 
 59, 456. 
 
 § Parliamentary Hist, of England, XXII, 233. 
 
 II Whitelock, Memorials, Oxford Ed., II, 262. 
 
90 THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 mon seal, as now. The first patent, for instance, under which 
 the Plymouth settlement obtained any paper title, was a deed 
 from the Council (of June 1, 1621) signed by six of the com- 
 pany only, individually, under their separate, private seals.* 
 A later confirmatory patent (January 13, 1629, O. S.) on the 
 other hand, though signed by the Earl of Warwick alone, pur- 
 ported to be executed by him in the name of the Council, and 
 bears its common seal.f 
 
 The removal from Massachusetts, in 1636, to the banks of 
 "the great river," and the foundation of the three river towns 
 under Haynes and Hooker, was accomplished with the express 
 assent of the Bay Colony, and a tacit understanding with the 
 holders of the Saybrook Patent. There was at first no asser- 
 tion that they were setting up an independent government. 
 N"ot claiming to be a separate corporation, they had, of course, 
 no common seal. 
 
 The Saybrook patentees, on the contrary, not only built forts, 
 appointed Governors and employed troops, but procured and 
 adopted a common seal. 
 
 The fact that they took this step is, of itself, strong evidence 
 that they had a right to take it. It is unlikely that earls and 
 viscounts, standing well at court, would undertake in such open 
 fashion to infringe on the royal prerogative. Only if they 
 were a corporation, or a branch of a corporation, could the 
 grantees under the Warwick deed lawfully use a common seal. 
 
 If Charles I did not grant a charter of incorporation to them 
 directly, he may have granted a patent confirming their land 
 titles, and they may have been justified in adopting a common 
 seal by a delegated authority. I refer, in this, to the clause 
 in the charter of the Council of Plymouth giving it power not 
 only to adopt a corporate seal as an English corporation estab- 
 lished at Plymouth ("one united Body incorporate here"), 
 but also any other seal or seals for public use by their Governor 
 or other "Ministers of ^New England." The Council may not 
 
 * Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 4th Series, II, 156; History of Plymouth Planta- 
 tion, Mass. Hist. Soc. Ed., I, 246; Winsor, Narrative, &c.. Hist., Ill, 301. 
 
 t Winsor, Narrative Hist., Ill, 369 ; Thorpe, American Charters, &c.. 
 Ill, 1846. 
 
THE SEAL OF CONI^ECTICUT. 91 
 
 improbably have adopted a local seal for the Connecticut set- 
 tlements, by some vote, no copy of which was preserved. Acts 
 speak louder than words, and after any long lapse of years 
 great weight must be attributed to the fact that a colonial seal 
 was in fact adopted for the Saybrook plantation. It is a legal 
 maxim that ex diuturnitate temporis omnia presumuntur rite 
 et sollenniter esse acta. 
 
 The seal of the Saybrook patentees was nearly circular in 
 form, of about the size of a silver dollar, and bore for its design 
 fifteen vines, arranged in three rows, the first of six, the second 
 of ^YQy and the lowest of four. Above them a hand, seemingly 
 thrown forward from the clouds, held a pennant bearing the 
 legend, Svstinet Qvi Teanstvlit. There was a narrow but 
 rather an ornate rim. 
 
 This muniment of jurisdiction and title was turned over 
 by -Governor Fenwick to the settlers in the upper towns, on 
 and near the great river, after he had undertaken to convey 
 to that "jurisdiction" all the lands covered by the Warwick 
 patent, "if it come into his power." His first agreement to 
 that effect was made December 5, 1644, and modified in 1646 
 by a commutation of certain customs duties, which it secured 
 to him for a term of years, to an annual payment of £180.* 
 In 1645 Fenwick returned to England, to become a member 
 of the Long Parliament and colonel in the Parliamentary army. 
 In 1649 he was appointed one of the Judges of Charles I, but 
 did not sit, as such, at the trial. 
 
 Roger Wolcott, in his Memoir for the History of Connecticut, 
 makes this statement in regard to the incident of the seal : 
 
 "The people of Connecticut for some time paid a rent or 
 tribute to George Fenwick, Esq'^, captain of Saybrook fort. 
 At length they bought the land and the fort of him and he 
 promised to give them a deed but failed, but he gave them the 
 Colony Seall. This I was told by Daniel Clark, Esq"", who was 
 the Secretary and a magistrate in the Jurisdiction at the time 
 of the Charter."t 
 
 * Collections of the Conn. Hist. Soc., Ill, 328; Col. Rec. of Conn., I, 
 271. 
 
 t Collections of the Conn. Hist. Soc, III, 328. 
 
yis THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 The seal thus obtained from Colonel Eenwick was adopted 
 as the seal of the Colony of Connecticut without any formal 
 vote of the General Court, so far as appears on record. Prob- 
 ably they feared to have it known that they had taken such a 
 step, lest it should savor too unmistakably of a claim of politi- 
 cal independence. Charles I was still on the throne, and the 
 event of the civil war was uncertain. 
 
 The seal thus procured was used as a common seal for the 
 consolidated colony at least as early as October, 1647, when it 
 was set by Governor Hopkins to a commission issued to John 
 Winthrop as magistrate at ^ew London.* 
 
 I have dwelt so long on these points in our early history 
 because the title of colonial Connecticut to its soil has so inti- 
 mate a connection with the title of colonial Connecticut to 
 its seal. 
 
 Let me recapitulate shortly the positions which have been 
 taken, and the salient facts mentioned. 
 
 Every corporation, whether it be a public or private one, 
 has the right to select and use a common seal. 
 
 'No other association of persons has such a right. 
 
 The Council of Plymouth for the planting, ruling, ordering 
 and governing of New England, was incorporated in 1620 by 
 a royal charter, giving them in express terms not only this right, 
 but that of dividing New England into a number of local 
 governments, each with a seal of its own and a Governor of 
 its own. 
 
 This, in effect, authorized this Council to create other local 
 public corporations within !N"ew England. 
 
 In or before 1622, the Council of Plymouth accordingly 
 provided for the separate incorporation of all places where 
 there should be any considerable number of persons engaged 
 in trade, as self-governing communities. 
 
 In 1635, the Council was dissolved. 
 
 * This commission is in the State Library, in the Winthrop collections. 
 See also Col. Rec, of Conn., I, 329, 578. Among other impressions of this 
 original seal, now extant, is one in the Winthrop Collection of MSS., in the 
 State Library, Vol. Ill, pp. 310, upon a commission to Daniel Witherall, 
 as Judge of the County Court. 
 
THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 93 
 
 During the intervening thirteen years, the Earl of Warwick, 
 its President and the keeper of its corporate seal, in 1631, 
 executed a deed of the territory now included in Connecticut 
 to an association of persons headed by Lord Say and Seal. 
 
 Four years later, in 1635, we find this association appoint- 
 ing a Governor of part of these Connecticut lands, at the mouth 
 of the Connecticut river. 
 
 In 1636, he promotes the settlement of another part of them, 
 higher up on the river, by what became the Colony of Connect- 
 icut. 'Not later than 1644, and probably much earlier, this 
 Say and Seal association did what only a corporation could 
 lawfully do, by adopting a common seal. In that year, the 
 then Governor of the Saybrook settlement and commandant of 
 the Saybrook fort is found to be in possession, as such, of this 
 common seal, and transfers, in behalf of those whom he repre- 
 sented, the fort, and with it the seal, to the Colony of Con- 
 necticut, with the promise to convey to it thereafter all the rest 
 of the lands covered by the deed to the association, should it 
 come into his power to do so. 
 
 In 1647, we find the person first commissioned Governor of 
 the Saybrook settlement, accepting from the Colony of Con- 
 necticut a commission as a local magistrate, authenticated under 
 this same seal, as the seal of that colony. 
 
 Is it not a probable, if not a necessary conclusion from these 
 'facts, that the Earl of Warwick either had proper grants of 
 the territory of Connecticut and authority to govern it, before 
 his deed to the Saybrook company, or else that this deed was 
 intended and regarded by all parties in interest as in legal 
 effect the deed of the Council, of which he was the President 
 and of whose common seal he was then the keeper ? 
 
 As soon as Connecticut received her charter (October, 1662) 
 the General Court declared that Westchester lay within the 
 territorial limits which it prescribed,* and sent a copy of the 
 vote to its inhabitants, certified under this same Saybrook seal.f 
 
 ♦ Col. Rec, I, 387. 
 
 fHoadly, The Public Seal of Connecticut, Conn. State Register for 
 1889, 438. 
 
94 TJIE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 The device of the seal challenges curiosity. Why were rows 
 of vines selected as the prominent feature? Why were these 
 arranged in three rows, each containing a different number, 
 and all together numbering fifteen ? 
 
 The number of patentees under the Warwick deed was eleven. 
 It might be suggested that the top row was to represent six 
 of them, and the second the others. But none of the patentees 
 had removed to 'New England. The motto indicates that those 
 who are represented as receiving divine support had already 
 been transplanted. 
 
 With more probability it may be surmised that it refers to 
 the three principal plantations already made under patents 
 from the Council for New England; that of Plymouth, that 
 on the coast of Maine under Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and that 
 of Massachusetts Bay. 
 
 It may well be, also, that there was no special significance 
 in the arrangement of the vines in three rows, but that it was 
 merely intended to depict a vineyard. An arangement of a 
 vineyard in three rows would be natural, in view of the form 
 of the seal, and the practice of heraldry, under which a '^charge*' 
 on a coat of arms, if repeated at all, is generally repeated thrice. 
 The top row bisects the circle. The vines in each row were 
 equi-distant from each other. More therefore could be put in 
 the top row than in the others, and more in the second than in 
 the third. 
 
 The wild grapes of this country made a strong impression 
 upon the early voyagers who came here from the North of 
 Europe. They gave it its name for the first discoverers — Vin- 
 land — and in the tract by Rev. Francis Higginson called 
 "New England's Plantation," written in 1630, he says that 
 "Excellent vines are here up and doune in the woods. Our 
 Govemour hath already planted a vineyard with great hope 
 of increase."* This would sufficiently account for the selection 
 of vines, rather than any other form of vegetation. 
 
 The design of each vine is so formal that it bears little or no 
 resemblance to that of the wild grape of our woods. One who 
 
 * Life of Francis Higginson, 94. 
 
THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 96 
 
 saw an impression of the original seal in 1662, wrote that he 
 supposed it to represent "the arborated craggy wilderness."* 
 
 The origin of the terse and striking motto I have been unable 
 to discover. It was not framed by the Romans. f 
 
 Dr. Hoadly, in his article in the Connecticut Register, refers 
 as a not improbable source to the eightieth Psalm. Here we 
 find these verses : 
 
 "8. Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the 
 heathen, and planted it. 
 
 9. Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, 
 and it filled the land." 
 
 But then follows a lamentation over the bitter ruin that 
 has since befallen it, and a prayer that God will return to its 
 aid, and visit again this vineyard of His planting, and save 
 His people. Here is nothing of the hopeful spirit in which 
 spoke the faith of the founders of N'ew England in the protec- 
 tion of God. That dictated the motto of Connecticut, and we 
 see it reappearing at the beginning of the next century in 
 verses written to greet its advent, by Judge Samuel Sewall of 
 Massachusetts. They were sung by bell-men on the streets of 
 Boston, just before daybreak on January 2, 1701, and the first 
 two read thus : 
 
 "Once more, our God, vouchsafe to shine: 
 Tame Thou the rigor of our clime; 
 Make haste with Thy impartial light 
 And terminate this long, dark night. 
 
 Let the transplanted English vine 
 Spread further still: still call it Thine; 
 Prune it with skill: for yield it can 
 More fruit to Thee, the husbandman." 
 
 When the patent from Charles II, creating Connecticut a 
 full public corporation, was obtained, the General Court imme- 
 diately and formally declared the seal acquired from Colonel 
 Fenwick to be the seal of the colony. On October 9, 1662, the 
 
 * Hoadly, The Public Seal of Connecticut, Conn. Register, 1889, 438. 
 t Professor E. P. Morris of Yale informs me that it has been searched 
 for in vain by Latin scholars, in the classical authors. 
 
96 THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 charter was produced and publicly read before the freemen, and 
 it was voted "that tbe Scale that formerly was vsed by the 
 Generall Court shall still remaine and be vsed as y® Scale of 
 this Colony, vntill y® Court see cause to y® contrary, and the 
 Secretary is to keep ye Scale, and to vse it on necessary occasions 
 for y« Colony."* 
 
 The Colony of ITew Haven, a few years after the establish- 
 ment of the Commonwealth, ventured of its own authority to 
 adopt a common seal. 
 
 !N"o impression or description of this now exists, so far as 
 I can ascertain. 
 
 The vote to procure one was passed by the General Court 
 on May 30, 1656, in connection with the approval of the com- 
 pilation of the general statutes made by Governor Eaton. It 
 read thus : 
 
 "Ordered that a publique seale shall be provided at ye charge of yo 
 jurisdiction, wch is to be ye seale of this colony, the bigness of it, and 
 ye impression to be vpon it they leaue to ye governour, and such other as 
 he shall thinke fit to advise w^h aboute it, to consider and order."! 
 
 One was thereupon cut, by Eaton's order, in England, and 
 sent over on the same ship which brought the new statute- 
 book. In May, 1656, he notified the General Court of the 
 arrival of the seal and desired them to accept it as a token of 
 his love. J 
 
 On the seizure of the government of Connecticut by Sir 
 Edmund Andros, in 168Y, although the charter had disap- 
 peared, John Allen, the Secretary of the Colony, handed over 
 to him the corporate seal.§ Gershom Bulkeley, in his Will 
 and Doom, written not long after the resumption of authority 
 by the freemen and General Court, in consequence of the acces- 
 sion of William and Mary, argued strongly from this circum- 
 stance that all charter rights to existence as a separate colony 
 had been destroyed. 
 
 * Col. Eec. of Conn., I, 386. 
 
 t N. H. Col. Rec, I, 147. 
 
 tlhid., 186. 
 
 § Conn. Hist. Soc. Collections, III, 141. 
 
THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 97 
 
 "And now," he says, "both their common seal is gone and 
 their officers are all gone -by their own act. Is not this a cesser 
 of the charter government? The seal disappears and the gov- 
 ernors withdraw themselves, suffering their offices to expire 
 without continuance, and is not this government now voluntarily 
 laid down, deserted, and extinct ?"* 
 
 When ISTew York passed into the possession of Andros in 
 September, 1688, the report made of the proceedings to the 
 Lords of Trade and Plantations states that as soon as he arrived 
 there "His Excellence sent for and received from Coll. Dongan 
 the seal of the late Gov* which was defaced and broaken in 
 Councill."t Probably the same fate befell the seal of Con- 
 necticut. 
 
 On the resumption here of charter government a new seal 
 was procured of the same general design. A representation 
 of it appears on the title page of Vol. IV of our Colonial 
 Records.! The motto is cut in larger letters than those on 
 that received from the Saybrook colony and the mode of dis- 
 playing it is less symmetrical. To atone, perhaps, for the 
 bolder lettering, TRAN'STULIT is shortened to TRASTULIT. 
 We had come to the dark age of colonial history, when the first 
 generation of English settlers, led by graduates of Oxford and 
 Cambridge, had passed away, and but a feeble beginning had 
 been made towards founding classical learning in 'New England. 
 
 This seal was seemingly incapable of making a clear impres- 
 sion. On a commission dated in 1690, which has been pre- 
 served in the State library, are two wax seals, each apparently 
 bearing the same stamp. One is almost undecipherable and the 
 other not much better. The Secretary has put a note against 
 the latter, explaining that it was affixed because the former 
 was so bad. 
 
 The original seal received from Colonel Fenwick was one 
 only adapted to printing on wax. 
 
 * Conn. Hist. Soc. Collections, III, 143. 
 
 t Doc. relating to the Col. Hist, of K-Y., Ill, 567. 
 
 t Cf. Preface to the same, v. Impressions on wax are preserved in the 
 State library; Winthrop Coll. of MSS., II, 198 (June 30, 1690) and 
 III, 312. 
 
 4 
 
98 THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 The fragility of sealing wax came to be generally recognized 
 by the beginning of the eighteenth century as making some 
 substitute desirable in the case of large seals on public docu- 
 ments of a permanent character. Letters had often been closed 
 with paste. The thin sort of paste used for this purpose was 
 called ^Vafer."* It was found that by allowing it to harden 
 in the shape of little cakes, these could be quickly moistened 
 and softened when wanted to close a letter. Such forms of paste 
 were now called wafers, — a word previously used for any 
 small, flat, edible cake. For a public seal, after being affixed 
 to the documents, an evenly cut piece of paper of correspond- 
 ing size called a "scarf," was pressed down upon them, on 
 which the device on the die was printed by the use of a lever 
 or screw press. 
 
 It was apparently in order to get the benefit of this modern 
 mode of sealing public instruments that in 1711, it was ordered 
 by the Governor and Council "that a new stamp shall be made 
 and cut of the seal of this Colony, suitable for the sealing upon 
 wafers, and that a press be provided with the necessary appur- 
 tenances for that purpose, as soon as may be, at the cost and 
 charge of this Colony, to be kept in the Secretary's office." f 
 
 The authority thus given was liberally construed by the 
 official, whoever he was, from whom the engraver took his orders. 
 ITot only was the new seal adapted for use with wafers, as well 
 as with wax, but the size, shape and device were essentially 
 altered. 
 
 Governor Wolcott's memoir, written in 1Y59, from which a 
 quotation has been already made, refers to it thus : "In Gover- 
 nour Saltonstal's time the seal was new made and enlarged, 
 but the impression and the motto is the same."$ 
 
 He must refer in these words to what was done under the vote 
 
 of 1711, but his memory evidently betrayed him. That very 
 
 careful historical scholar, the late Charles J. Hoadly, LL.D., 
 
 State Librarian, in Vol. VI of the Colonial Records, gives a 
 
 fac simile of the seal as recut in 1711, which represents it as 
 
 * Bailey's Diet., 1733, in vert. 
 
 t Col. Rec. of Conn., V, 1706-1716, 290. 
 
 % Conn. Hist. Soc. Collections, III, 328. 
 
THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 99 
 
 an oval, with a double border, containing the words SIGILLVM 
 C0L0:N'I^E CON^NECTICElSrSIS, and enclosing three vines 
 only, with the motto QVI TEAl^STVLIT SVSTIl^ET.* The 
 hand which in the original seal emerged from the clouds to 
 sustain a pennant bearing this motto is in this reproduction 
 aimlessly stretched out above the pennant ; and the whole design 
 is stiff and unpleasing. The Saybrook patentees, no doubt, 
 had their die cut in London. The American engraver was not 
 yet equal to the British. 
 
 The blunder in Latinizing the name of the colony was 
 obvious. When Lord Eldon, who was somewhat inclined to 
 petty economies, died, the funereal hatchment set up over the 
 door of his house bore the legend Mors janua vita. A passer-by 
 noticed the slip of using the nominative, vita, for the genitive 
 case. "^0 slip at all,'' said his companion: ^'his Lordship 
 undoubtedly left particular directions to have it so, in order 
 to avoid the expense of the additional letter which a diphthong 
 would require." 
 
 'No such parsimony can be imputed to Connecticut for 
 (though after deliberating over it for some forty years), in 
 October, 1747, the General Assembly voted ^'that the publick 
 Seal of this Colony be altered and changed from the form of 
 an oval to that of a circle, and that the same shall have cut and 
 engraved upon it the same inscription, motto, and device that 
 are on the present seal, with a correction of such mistakes as 
 happened in the spelling and letters in the inscription and motto 
 of the present seal, and the Secretary of this Colony is directed 
 to procure such alteration at the cost of this Colony as soon as 
 conveniently may be." ISTothing was done by the Secretary, 
 however, and the seal remained unchanged until the Colony 
 became a sovereign State, f 
 
 It has been suggested that the reason which led the Governor 
 and Council in 1711 to reduce the number of vines from fifteen 
 
 * An excellent impression on wax has been preserved in the seal set to 
 the charter of Yale C!ollege in 1745. It is enclosed in a silver box; 
 attached to ribbons dependent from the parchment; and is in perfect 
 condition in all respects. 
 
 tCol. Rec. of Conn., VI, iii; IX, 333. 
 
100 THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 to three was thus to symbolize the three plantations of Hartford, 
 Windsor and Wethersfield, whose people combined in adopting 
 the Fundamental Orders of 1639.* 
 
 It seems to me much more probable, as surmised by Dr, 
 Leonard Bacon,t that they desired to commemorate in this way 
 the union of the three early colonies, which had been set up here 
 in the preceding century. 
 
 The Connecticut of 1711 had risen out of the consolidation 
 of three separate political communities: — the jurisdiction of 
 Connecticut River having its seat at Hartford; the jurisdiction 
 of the Warwick patentees having its seat at Saybrook ; and the 
 jurisdiction of 'New Haven having its seat at New Haven. 
 With the first of these the second was virtually united in 1644, 
 and the third in 1662. The triune character of the resulting 
 Colony of Connecticut it was natural and appropriate to com- 
 memorate in this way. 
 
 An important step in that direction had been taken two years 
 before. In June, 1709, the General Court directed an issue 
 of colony bills of credit to ^'be indented and stamped with such 
 stamps as the Governor and Council shall direct." $ The Gov- 
 ernor and Council thereupon ordered "that the said bills of 
 credit shall be all stamped with the arms of the Colony or 
 such a figure as this.'' A figure followed, circular in form, 
 with the three vines in the center. One of the same description, 
 except that it is oval instead of circular, and set upon an orna- 
 mental shield, appeared on the bills when issued. § 
 
 The seal made under the vote of 1711 was used more or 
 less until 1784. As it purported on its face to be that of a 
 colony, it was ill adapted, after Connecticut proclaimed her 
 independence, for the service of a sovereign State. In a com- 
 mission issued August 17, 1776, to Rev. Ebenezer Baldwin of 
 Danbury, as chaplain of the fourth and sixteenth regiments of 
 our militia in the Continental army, by "Jonathan Trumbull, 
 Esquire, Governor and Commander in Chief of the State of 
 
 * Johnston, Connecticut, 73. 
 t Historical Discourses, 16, note. 
 tCol. Rec, 1706-1716, 111. 
 § Ihid., XV, 562. 
 
THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 101 
 
 Connecticut in 'New England in America" the subscription 
 clause is, "Given under my Hand and Seal at Arms in the 
 State aforesaid at Lebanon the 17th day of August, Anno 
 Domini, 1776," and the seal affixed was impressed with the 
 Turnbull arms, which the Connecticut Trumbull s had the right 
 to bear.* On this three bulls' heads appear where one would 
 look for the three vines. 
 
 The subscription clause of a commission issued by Governor 
 Trumbull, at Lebanon, July 21, 1777, to Eoger Sherman, Sam- 
 uel Huntington, and Titus Hosmer, as delegates to the Spring- 
 field Convention of that year is of the same tenor. On the 
 other hand, a commission preserved in the State Library, to 
 Lieutenant John Hamlin, issued through the Secretary's office 
 at New Haven, in 1776, has the old colonial seal used with this 
 subscription clause: "Given under my Hand and the Seal of 
 this State in !N^ew Haven the first day of N^ovember, A. D. 
 1776." 
 
 These papers indicate a natural resort to temporary make- 
 shifts between the date of the Declaration of Independence and 
 the adoption of a proper seal for the new-born State.. 
 
 In 1777, an issue was made of colony bills of credit, which 
 bear a device containing but a single vine. Of course it does 
 not profess to represent the seal of the State. 
 
 It must always be remembered that what is commonly spoken 
 of as the arms of the State or Colony is something quite dif- 
 ferent from the seal. 
 
 The Colony never had any coat of arms, properly so called. 
 It could not have assumed one without royal permission ; and 
 this it never had. The State has not desired to perpetuate a 
 system of Herald's Colleges and armorial bearings for a 
 favored few, although finally, in 1897, it stated what its own 
 arms were. Prior to that time, however, what were the arms 
 of the State, in popular acceptation, had been described in tech- 
 nical terms, by Dr. Charles J. Hoadly, thus: "Argent, three 
 
 * Stuart, in his Life of Jonathan Trumbull, gives a cut of the arms, 
 enclosed within a circle, probably taken from the Grovernor's seal, as the 
 size and shape are the same. 
 
102 THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 vines supported and fructed proper."* In other words, it was 
 three fruit-bearing grape vines, emblazoned in their natural 
 colors, on a white field. 
 
 While we have no statute in this State describing with accu- 
 racy the seal of the State, there is one, passed in the year last 
 mentioned (1897) on the application of the Daughters of the 
 Revolution, describing the flag, and, by reference, the arms. 
 This is contained in Section 4889 of the General Statutes, and 
 provides as follows: 
 
 "The dimensions of the flag shall be five feet and six inches in length; 
 four feet four inches in width. The flag shall be of azure blue silk, 
 charged with a shield of rococo design of argent white silk, having embroid- 
 ered in the center three grape vines, supported and bearing fruit in 
 natural colors. The bordure to the shield shall be embroidered in two 
 colors, gold and silver. Below the shield shall be a white streamer, cleft 
 at each end, bordered by gold and browns in fine lines, and upon the 
 streamer shall be embroidered in dark blue letters the motto 'Qui Trans- 
 tulit Sustinet'; the whole design being the arms of the State." 
 
 In 1673, the General Court, in providing for a Revision of 
 the Colonial Statutes which was soon afterwards published at 
 Cambridge, ordered "that the impression of the Coloney Seale 
 shall be aflfixed in the beginning of every law-booke,"t and 
 it was done accordingly. Massachusetts in like manner had 
 the year before put a wood-cut impression of her seal on the 
 Revision of her Statutes, t 
 
 Except in this instance, throughout the colonial era it was 
 usual to put the royal arms on the title page of each Revision 
 of the Laws of Connecticut, and at the head of each issue of 
 Session Laws. It was omitted first in the Session Laws of 
 the May Session, 1776, and Connecticut is styled, not, as 
 before, "His Majesty's English Colony of Connecticut in ^N'ew 
 England in America," but the "English Colony of Connect- 
 icut in 'New England in America." In the Session Laws of 
 the October Session, 1776, it is first described as the "State 
 of Connecticut." 
 
 * Conn. Reg. for 1889, 440. 
 t Col. Rec, 1605-1677, 201. 
 ± Green, John Foster, 11. 
 
THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 103 
 
 In May, 1784, tlie General Assembly adopted this resolu- 
 tion :* 
 
 ''Whei^eas, the circumscription of the seal of this State is 
 improper and inapplicable to our present constitution, 
 
 ''Resolved, by this Assembly, that the Secretary be and he is 
 hereby empowered and directed to get the same altered from 
 the words as they now stand to the following inscription, namely, 
 SiGiLL. Keip. Connecticutensis/' 
 
 The Secretary did not follow these instructions with exact- 
 ness. The words descriptive of the seal itself were spelled out 
 in full, thus : Sigillum Keipublicae Connecticutensis. 
 
 He also re-arranged them so as to give a more symmetrical 
 appearance to the whole device, and omitted the hand which 
 for nearly two centuries had upheld the pennant or scroll 
 bearing the motto. 
 
 At the October Session of the same year, the new design 
 was approved by the Assembly and the seal made thenceforth 
 the seal of the State. The fee to the Secretary for affixing 
 it to any document was made one shilling. f 
 
 Apparently a sketch had been made of the seal as originally 
 ordered, for a wood-cut of the State arms in such a form is 
 prefixed to the published Session Laws of October, 1784. This 
 coat of arms with the accompanying legends varies somewhat 
 in detail from that of the Colony. There are the three vines 
 arranged in an oval, upon an escutcheon ; but the outer inscrip- 
 tion around the rim is now Connedicutensis Sigill. Reip., and 
 the legend within the oval is shortened to Qui Tra. Sus. 
 
 The same design appears upon the title page of the Kevision 
 of that year, and heads each issue of the Session Laws down 
 to that for the October Session, 1796, in which the device is 
 considerably altered. The oval now stands alone, instead of 
 being displayed on an escutcheon. The QUI TEA. SUS. 
 which it formerly contained is omitted, but QUI TRAIN'S- 
 TULIT SUSTINET appears upon a narrow scroll beneath, 
 
 * Stat. Eev. of 1784, 64, 218. 
 
 t Stat. Rev. of 1784, 64, 218. Impressions are preserved in the State 
 Library. Pearne Collection, 1759-1800, 34, 35. 
 
104 THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 each end of whicli curls over a sprig with leaves. The top 
 of the oval is crowned by a garland of leaves, supported partly 
 by the oval and partly by rosettes on each side of it, which 
 falls low enough to touch the sprays rising from the bottom. 
 
 The Session Laws for the October Session, 1792, are headed 
 by a device much like the former one, used prior to 1791 ; 
 but that on the Laws of the May Session, 1793, is identical 
 with that on those of 1791. 
 
 In the Compilation of the Statutes of 1796, the seal on the 
 title page is in shape a shield, and the inner legend is Qui 
 Trans. Sust In that of 1808, Qui trans, sust. appears on a 
 scroll under the shield, and on each side of the shield is a 
 leafy branch. The title page of "Book II'' of the Laws, com- 
 mencing with those of the October Session of that year, but 
 published in 1819, represents the arms with the motto inside 
 the shield again, and abbreviated to QUI TKAIST. SUST. 
 
 So far as the different changes in the words or place of the 
 motto are concerned, it is to be remembered that mottoes form 
 regularly no part of an English coat of arms. They are not 
 mentioned in patents granting arms and form no part of the 
 "estate" granted. Whoever has a grant of arms can adopt 
 any motto that he pleases, and the officers of arms will then 
 record it. 
 
 Until the eighteenth century, few coats of arms of English 
 families had any appurtenant motto at all.* 
 
 The variations from time to time in the design of the State 
 arms would seem to' indicate that the Secretary, in printing the 
 Session Laws or General Revisions, left a considerable latitude 
 to the engraver of the wood-cut, or to the discretion of the 
 printer in choosing which of several wood-cuts should be used. 
 
 The seal of the State itself, which was in the Secretary's 
 keeping, remained identically the same from 1784 to 1842. 
 
 The frequent changes in the wood-cuts of the State arms 
 seem to have attracted public attention by the time when the 
 people became ready to frame their Constitution of govern- 
 ment, and in that of 1818 we find these provisions on that 
 subject: 
 
 * Fox-Davies, Complete Guide to Heraldry, 448, 449. 
 
THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 105 
 
 "Art. 4, Sec. 11. All commissions . . . Shall be sealed with the 
 State seal, signed by the Governor and attested by the Secretary." 
 
 "Sec. 18. A Secretary shall be chosen. ... He shall be the keeper 
 of the seal of the State which shall not be altered." 
 
 In the next Kevision (that of 1821), no design in the nature 
 of a seal appears on the title page. l!^or do we find one again in 
 the Session Laws until 1827, when a cut is printed in the same 
 form as that in the Ee vision of 1808. 
 
 In 1840 the General Assembly took the following action : 
 
 "Resolved, That the Secretary of State be instructed to ascertain the 
 proper seal and bearings of this State, and report to the next session 
 of the General Assembly; and also whether any legislative enactment 
 is required for a proper description of said seal."* 
 
 It was probably unfortunate that we then had as Secretary 
 that enthusiastic antiquarian, Koyal R. Hinman. He knew 
 so well the difficulty of the task thus imposed upon him, and 
 was so unwilling to do anything imperfectly, that he never 
 made any report whatever. 
 
 Apparently by this time the die for the seal approved in 
 1Y84 had become worn out, for in 1842 the General Assembly 
 passed this resolution: 
 
 "Resolved, That the Secretary be and he is hereby authorized to procure 
 a new state seal, similar to the one now in use."t 
 
 The seal procured under this authority was in use for about 
 forty years. 
 
 The die was in fact a little broader than that of its prede- 
 cessor, and each vine is made to bear three clusters of grapes, 
 although in that the two upper ones had each four clusters 
 and the lower one five. The press was a screw press, with arms 
 some three feet long. 
 
 Originally, and for many years, the seal of 1842 was used 
 with wax. J Later it was commonly used with a wafer, and a 
 
 * Resolves and Private Acts, 1840, 67. 
 
 t Resolves and Private Acts, Special October Session, 1842, 17. 
 
 IHon. N. D. Sperry, then the oldest living ex-Secretary of the State, 
 informed the writer, in 1910, that this was the case when he was in oflfice, 
 which was in 1855 and 1856. 
 
106 THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 notched paper ^'scarf."* About 1880, the Secretary (the late 
 Chief Justice Torrance) had a new die cut, as nearly like 
 the old one as possible, under the directions of the chief clerk 
 (Mr. Robinson S. Hinman), suitable for stamping directly 
 on the document to be sealed, without the intervention of any 
 wafer or scarf. A press of modern style, worked with a lever, 
 was also procured. 
 
 The only special authority for this action was a Resolution 
 of the General Assembly, passed in 1864, empowering the Sec- 
 retary to procure "a new State seal, similar to the one now 
 in use."t Dr. Hoadly, who was quite a stickler for forms, 
 once said that the old die which, though still capable of use, 
 had been laid aside, was the real thing, and the other was only 
 "Hinman's seal." 
 
 During the period of the interregnum from 1901 to 1903, 
 the old seal was carefully hidden away by Mr. Hinman in the 
 vault of the Executive offices in the capitol, lest those who 
 claimed that Luzon B. Morris was the real Governor should 
 by chance get hold of it, and undertake to issue commissions 
 or perform other acts of State. 
 
 The die of the seal of 1784 was engraved on a silver plate, 
 which was soldered upon a brass shoe, still preserved in the 
 State Library. The silver plate was given by Hon. Charles 
 W. Bradley, in 1846, when he was Secretary of the State, to 
 Yale College, and is in the University Library. 
 
 The die for the seal of 1842 was engraved on brass. 
 
 In 1889 a Secret Ballot Act was passed, requiring the Secre- 
 tary to furnish official ballots and envelopes for the use of all the 
 electors. The envelopes were to be ^ ^stamped with the seal 
 of the State."$ 
 
 It is one of the traditions of the capitol that this was con- 
 strued by the Secretary as requiring the great seal itself to be 
 stamped on every envelope, and that in using the seal of 1882 
 for that purpose it was effectually used up. 
 
 * This was the practice in 1870, as the writer was informed by R. S. 
 Hinman, Esq., the chief clerk in the Secretary's office for many years, 
 t Special Acts for 1864, 151; Hoadly, Conn. Reg. for 1889, 441. 
 $ Public Acts of 1889, 155, Sec. 3. 
 
THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. ''•*•:., f ;' XO,^^ .; 
 
 The growth of the State has necessarily called for a more 
 frequent use of the seal in many ways, and during the past 
 thirty years three new ones in all have been cut.* Conforma- 
 bly to the provisions of the Constitution, the character of the 
 device in all respects, however, has remained unaltered. One 
 of these, engraved on copper, which was accidentally mutilated 
 by being struck upon a pin, was recently deposited in the 
 corner stone of the new State Library and Supreme Court 
 building. 
 
 There have then, in the history of Connecticut, been three 
 and only three great seals: that received from the original 
 Saybrook patentees about 1644, and awlc^vardly reproduced 
 after the overthrow of the Andros government, about 1690; 
 that cut in 1711 ; and that now in use, the first die for which 
 was cut in 1784. 
 
 The original motto has remained throughout unchanged, 
 except that the words have been re-arranged; SUSTIXET 
 QUI TEAIS^STULIT being replaced in 1711, in the interest 
 of better Latinity, by QUI TEAE'STULIT SUSTI:N'ET. A 
 human hand was represented near the motto in the two first 
 seals, but disappeared in that of 1784. 
 
 The symbol of the vine or the vineyard has been uniformly 
 retained, though with a change in number, which was first 
 made in 1711. 
 
 The original seal contained no statement of what it was; 
 nor did that which temporarily replaced it. In the second 
 such a statement in Latin was added, and this was followed in 
 substance in the third, when the colony had become a sovereign 
 State. 
 
 But one thing, then, has stood absolutely the same upon her 
 seal, during the whole life of Connecticut. It is the three words 
 that expressed the faith of the fathers in the goodness of God. 
 Those whom He had transplanted, they said. He is sustaining. 
 Belief in God, and an attitude towards Him of reverence and 
 
 * So I am informed by Hon. Richard J. Dwyer, Deputy Secretary of 
 the State, who has been connected with the Secretary's office during all 
 that period. 
 
10.8 : . . THE SEAL OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 thankfulness have ever been a characteristic of our people ; and 
 each succeeding generation for now nearly three centuries has 
 thought it fit that they should thus be commemorated upon our 
 seal of State. 
 
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