Town flags, OK, but what about town seals?

The news that the town of Boscawen has chosen a new town flag – you can read it here – reminded me of a couple things.

One is that city and town official flags have no legal backing, as I reported when Boscawen was debating the issue. They’re just fun symbols. Unless the community has registered them as a trademark you are welcome to copy the design as long as you don’t pretend you are connected to the municipality in any official capacity.

The other item that it reminded me of is a question: what about town and city seals? Municipal flags might be goofy but seals feel more like a legal implement, the modern version of a king placing their imprint in sealing wax on an official document. At least 128 towns and cities in new Hampshire have “official” seals, at least according to wikipedia. Are they legal representations of some kind or are they just fun symbols?

Just fun symbols, it seems.

I queried Cordell Johnson, an attorney who spent years as government counsel for the New Hampshire Municipal Association and his own town’s moderator, about the issue. His response:

I don’t believe city seals are required. I cannot find any reference to them in the law. Of course, the state has a seal, which is provided for in state law (RSA 3:9–in the same chapter with the state tree, flower, bird, etc.). I’m not sure it serves any legal purpose but its unauthorized use is illegal. I’ve checked the city charters for several (not all) of the 13 cities, and I don’t find a reference to a seal in any of them. To the extent they exist, I think they are an interesting but unnecessary relic.

Concord does have reference to a city seal in its ordinances (Article 1-2-1). It seems to date from the the city charter in 1853. It’s a very old-fashioned design featuring a scroll and the words “The wilderness was glad for them: Law, education, religion” wrapped around the statehouse. It’s like something out of a Dickens novel.

But I don’t think that seal is used these days. Most city documents and websites carry a version of the symbol as defined on the city flag, showing a modern drawing of the Concord coach with the words Concord NH around it. Here’s the old seal and a version of the new symbol as it is used by the city’s community power group: