Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-11-14
THE GREAT SEAL.
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF CALI.
FORNIA,S COAT OF ARMS.
How the Bear Came TO be Added
Caleb Lyons Borrowed Piumage
Sad Fate of the Designer.

written for the REcoRD-UsIoN by Winfield J.
Davis.
The great seal OF California, one of the
youngest yet most favored of the States of
the American Union, is perhaps more ar
tistic and appropriate than that of any of
her sisters 1t conveys an impression of
quiet dignity and commanding sovereignty
peculiarly characteristic of a proud and
prosperous commonwealth. While adopt
ed thirty-six years ago, at time when the
vast resources of the new State we're COM
paratively undeyeloped, it is so comprehen-
sive as 10 suggest every one of the great
industries which the energy of her intelli-
gent and enterprising people have since
developed, and which in 1849 could hardly
have been conjectured. The central figure,
Minerva, one of the most ancient and
chaste of the religious conceptions OF the
Greeks, the patron of heroism among men,
the protectress of the agriculturist the
mechanic, the philosopher, the poet and
the orator, the symbol of thought, and the
GODDESS of wisdom, is suggestive of the
birth of this young western empire. As
Minerva sprang full grown, armored, and
with a mighty war shout, from the brain
of Jupiter, when his head was cleft by the
ak of Vulcan, SO California came into the
Union of American States a perfect soyer-
eign commonwealth, without the in
fantile territorial probation through which
her elder sisters had passed. The grizzly
bear is suggestive Of the stirring times of
the Bear Flag Revolution" Of 1916, in
which handful of determined American
settlers cowed the Mexican authorities, and
laid foundation which rendered the con-
quest of the country by the United States
forces the easy work of a few months. The
miner, with his cradle and pan, is illustra-
tive of the first industry of the State, and
the one which Providence seemed to have
developed at that particular time to furnish
to the Union the gold necessary to preserve
its integrity in its most trying hour. The
sheaveS of wheat remind us ofthe immense
agricultural wealth of our coast; the bunch
of grapes fOreshadoWed an interest which
has already made California a second
France; while the representation of the
ships in the bay of San Francisco was q
forecast Of the commercial importance OF
the remarkable city by the sea.
THE SEAL As ORIGINALLY DESIGNED.
At the time when the question of design
ing the great seal for the new State was
being agitated in the Constitutional Con-
vention, which met in Monterey in 1S49,
there happened to be sojournihg temporal
rily in that little town an accomplished and
cultivated officer of the United States
Army, Major Robert Selden Garnet. He
was gentleman of modest demeanor, and
excelied in the use of his pencil. One
evening he Sketched design for u seal of
the State, and it was exhibited to various
members Of the Convention. One of the
delegates asked leave to present it to the
body, but the quiet Major declined upon
the ground that he believed that knowl-
edge of the source from whence it had
come would prevent its adoption. There
existed at that time quite hostility be-
tween the military authorities and the
nascent civil powers, and there was an es-
pecial distrust of the secret mission of
Thomas Butler King, with which Garnet
was understood to be connected. Caleb
Lyon, one of the clerks of the Convention,
learned of the design, and readily obtained
the consent OF Garnet to appropriate ii and
present it as his own production. As the
design came from the hands of its author,
It was chaste and beautiful and somewhat
different from the present seal. 1t repre-
sented the figure of Minerva, with the
Golden Gate, and ship in full sail in the
foreground; and the Sierra Nevada range
i'll the background, with the word " Eu-
reka above. The design was referred to
a committee, and on September %, 1919,
the report of the committee was considered
by the Convention. W. f. Shannon
deemed the design most happy one, but
more appropriate for a coat OF arms than
for seal. He said that it was unusual for
State seal to contain motto, and that it
ordinarily comprehended the main en-
blems, and the words Great Seal of the
State. An explanation accompanying the
design was entered in the Journals, as fol-
lpv-c