Ohio's state seal has been redesigned at least ten times in the state's history. From 1805 to 1866, the seal's design was left unspecified, a situation unique among the states. The seal bears a Latin inscription, , "He has planted one better than the one fallen," commemorating the decline of wilderness to make way for civilization.
Rising sun The first
Constitution of Ohio, adopted on November 29, 1802, and effective March 1, 1803, provided for a state seal but left the details unspecified: The first
Secretary of State,
William Creighton, Jr., initially used his personal seal on official documents. and Sand Hill from Adena On March 25, 1803, the
General Assembly passed an act concerning the duties of the Secretary of State, introducing the first of many designs for the state seal, based on a sketch by Creighton: The design was traditionally said to depict the view from U.S. Senator
Thomas Worthington's
Chillicothe-area estate, Belle View: in 1803, Creighton emerged from an all-night meeting at the estate and saw "the rising sun of the new state" just beyond Mount Logan. However, most historians regard the story to be apocryphal, noting that the sun, mountains, and agricultural implements were common in seals of that era. Regardless, the present seal does represent the view from Worthington's estate, now known as
Adena, as a matter of law. The physical seal of 1803 followed the adopted design loosely: from behind a full mountain range rose a sun with eyes. Despite the 1805 act being itself repealed on January 31, 1831, no replacement design was specified. particularly on court seals. Common embellishments included a plow and recumbent sheath of wheat, a range of mountains instead of a single peak (as in the Creighton seal), and an "ark" (a broad horn
flatboat with a roof) floating on a river (understood to be the
Ohio River, quite a distance from Chillicothe). In an 1860s version, the arrows levitate among the clouds. Besides artistic liberty, some seals reflected confusion over the state's founding year, which was popularly believed to be 1802, the year the original constitution was adopted. The Republicans' new motto was problematic, as it ironically recalled
states' rights just after the
Civil War. Moreover, the increased size, intricate design, and additional seals more than exhausted the $1,000 that had been appropriated to the Secretary of State (). An even larger
budget overrun would have resulted from an amendment on April 16, 1867. On May 9, 1868, a newly elected
Democratic General Assembly reverted to the 1803 coat of arms and formalized the depiction of a mountain range, present since Creighton's seal. Despite the about-face, the 1866 device persisted in various capacities for decades. To the dismay of one historian, the Governor, Secretary of State, and Supreme Court all continued to seal documents with the 1866 device into the 1880s. In 1889, stained glass seals of 42 states then in existence, including the 1866 Ohio seal, were hung in the
Superior Court of
San Diego County, California.
Standardization The coat of arms received a substantial revision in December 1967. Cincinnati-based interior decorator Robert Greiwe had been commissioned to paint the Great Seal on the
dropped ceiling of the
Ohio Statehouse rotunda. His uncertainty over which version to paint led State Representatives
Ralph B. Kohnen and
Myrl Shoemaker to sponsor 107 HB 164, which standardized a specific design throughout state government. The river was reintroduced to the coat of arms, while seventeen distinct rays of sunlight extended to the perimeter of the coat of arms. Now the scene officially depicted the view from Adena. A reference image was for the first time included in the statute: Under the new legislation, the Governor was given authorization to regulate the seal's use. All new seals acquired after January 1, 1969, were required to bear the new design, and the requirement was extended to county and municipal governments for the first time. Many cities had already adopted seals that bore no relation to the state seal, but they were exempted under a
grandfather clause. Though the physical Great Seal was also exempted, the Governor's office eventually replaced it with one that conformed to the new design. The reference image was also modified to include a small dot at the interior end of each ray. ==Usage==