Newburyport City Seal

THE CITY OF NEWBURYORT
Arms and Seal

The city of Newburyport's government was organized on the 24^th of June of 1851. On that day, some three to four hundred spectators gathered upstairs in City Hall¹ as the oaths of office were administered to the new bodies of city government: the Mayor, six Aldermen (each representing a ward) and eighteen members of the Common Council (three from each ward).

Among the first decrees and ordinances passed by the new City Government was Ordinance No. 14, “To Establish the City Arms and Seal.” The ordinance reads ...

“Be it ordained, &c., as follows:

Section 1. The Arms of the City shall be the following, to wit: Quarterly, first, two light-houses,² in the distance, a ship under full sail;³ second, a steam-mill;⁴ third, a ship on the stocks;⁵ and fourth, the seal of Newbury, in England, on a mount three domed towers,⁶ on each a pennon, crest, a mural coronet surmounted by two hands conjoined; supporters, two female figures, that on the dexter side representing America, that on the sinister, Massachusetts; scroll, Terra Marique.⁷

Section 2. The seal of the city shall bear as a device, the shield, crest and scroll of the arms of the city, with the legend, ‘City of Newburyport, A.D. MDCCCLI’.”

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¹ Then newly constructed, Newburyport City Hall was first used earlier that year to host the community’s last official annual town meeting. On that date in history --- March 18, 1851 --- the gathering had reconvened the meeting in City Hall, after a long session at the Market House (now the Firehouse Center). The body politic discussed, along with other matters, the initiative to incorporate Newburyport as a city form of government and the future annexation of the portions of Newbury called Joppa and Belleville.

Anticipating the City's Sesquicentennial Year celebration in 2001, Mayor Lisa Mead ordered the city seal faithfully restored to the original (depicted above) --- a design inspired by Newburyport's first Mayor, Caleb Cushing. A simplified graphic appeared on the City Sesquicentennial commemorative flag, and its colors fly high on the flagship Misty Isles during her comings and goings. Newburyport's city seal is widely represented --- found on official documents and letterheads and imprinted on the Treasurer's receipts and replacement street signs are now embellished with the city's arms and seal. The Comity website's index page displays the framed City Arms and Seal that adorns City Hall's council chambers.

² In 1783, two beacons were erected on Plum Island. Subsequently in 1787 the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts authorized the construction and funding of the "two small wooden light houses on the north end of Plumb Island." Newburyport merchants voluntarily contributed the sum needed to avoid the delay, and the lighthouses were most likely constructed the following summer. One of the lighthouses was destroyed by fire on August 8, 1836. The other, in connection with a low movable light, was used for twenty-five or thirty years longer, before it was taken down. The Newburyport Harbor Range Lights erected in 1873 are in the same vicinity as those original 18th century structures. To this day, visitors are still guided to the Newburyport lighthouses, both which appear on the National Register of Historic Places.

³ Frequent inquiry is made about the significance of the artistic devices of the Newburyport Arms and Seal. When it is explained that the upper dexter (right) quadrant of the city seal depicts two lighthouses with a ship or boat under full sail arriving in port, those aspiring to be one of the Knowing Ones (so ask good questions and question the answer) often pose the question: "Where is the ship?" Explaining that the design represents a sloop or ketch rather than the gallant ships associated with the Clipper City --- more like a boat with its canvas hardly under full sail --- typically, the reaction is that it doesn't even look like a boat! This provides the perfect opportunity to ply a favorite lifeline from Winnie the Pooh (when Piglet was entirely surrounded by water) and respond, "Ah, but you see, that isn't just an ordinary sort of boat, sometimes it's a boat ..."

⁴ By the time the City of Newburyport was incorporated in 1851, several steam mills were in operation. The Newburyport Steam Cotton Company, built in 1835 near a wharf at the foot of Strong Street, had been purchased and renamed the Essex Steam Mills in 1844; Manufacture of cotton cloth continued until that factory was destroyed by fire on March 6, 1856. Investors incorporated the Wessacumon Mills in 1837 and built a large brick factory on the corner of Pleasant and Inn Streets. Expanding in 1840, another large factory was constructed on an adjacent property (now the Green Street municipal parking lot) --- and the whole operation was renamed Bartlett Steam Mills. Both factories were destroyed by fire in March of 1881 and never rebuilt. After the incorporation of the James Steam Mills in early 1842, the factory experienced several expansions, reorganizations and acquisitions by other manufacturing industries. The four-story building of the Ocean Steam Mills stood on the corner of Kent and Munroe Streets. First incorporated in 1845, the company expanded the structure in 1867 and after twice changing ownership, a second factory was built in 1880.

⁵ Some assume the lower dexter side of the city seal portrays a ship at sea, thus they question the sails missing from the ship's rigging. The graphic actually depicts a ship under construction, supported by a shipyard's stocks, in recognition of Newburyport's prominent role as a shipbuilding community in the 19th Century, a common scene along the waterfront. At one time, the Middle Shipyard was made available for shipbuilding at a fee of 3 pense per (vessel) ton.

⁶ The Massachusetts Bay Colony plantation of Newbury [renamed from the Indian reference Wessacucon also spelled Wessacumcon] assumed the name of its English namesake not because the settlers had originated from Newbury but because founder Reverend Thomas Parker had onetime preached there. Newbury, England is located approximately fifty-six miles from Hyde Park, London on the river Kennet, with the Waterside in Newbury on the Avon Canal. In the first millennium, the town went by the Saxon name Uluritone (likely a corruption of the word Ulwardstone) after its feudal lord, Ulward. However, at the close of the twelfth century the town assumed the name of the castle of the Earl of Perch, which was called "Newbury," and the town's arms and seal depicted that grand manor, which the City of Newburyport duplicates to honor its namesake and heritage.

⁷ Translated from the Latin, "Terra Marique" (land and sea) references "the Waterside" Third Parish of Newbury that separated as the town of Newburyport in 1764 --- ambit to which Joppa Flats and Belleville sections of Newburyport were incorporated during the City of Newburyport's organization in 1851. As laid out today, all six wards of Newburyport share some part of "the Waterside" --- in geography and history.

(Facts corroborated by John J. Currier's "History of Newburyport Massachusetts 1764 - 1905" and Euphemia Vale Smith's "History of Newburyport.")