by Marie Antonia Parsons

Created on: November 17, 2009   Last Updated: November 20, 2009

New York is the Empire State, and its flag is symbolic of that pride. Once Dutch, then English, in 1788 after the end of the Revolutionary War, New York was the 11th colony to be admitted into the new United States.

Her Great Seal which appears on the flag is the fifth and last form. The Seal was first devised in 1777, the year after Independence from England was declared and signed, by a committee consisting of Morris, Jay and Hobart. The second form of the Seal was devised by Governor George Clinton and Chancellor Livingston in 1778.

The third Seal was required by an act passed in 1798, authorizing the Comptroller, Attorney General and Surveyor General to repair the old Seal or cause a new one to be made. The commission decided to make a new one and recorded a description of it on January 22, 1799.

The fourth Seal was first used on November 28, 1809. Finally, the fifth and last form given to the Coat of Arms on the seal of the state was in 1882.

The flag of New York State proudly displays this State Seal centered on a dark blue field. It is a modern version of a Revolutionary War flag. The flag's field is dark blue. At each side of the Great Seal stands a female figure. On the left as one faces the flag, Liberty stands clad in a blue robe, her hair decorated with pearls, cloaked in red with a gold sash. She stands for freedom, holding a staff topped with a Liberty cap. Such a cap had been given to Roman slaves when they were emancipated, and had been adopted by French Revolutionaries as symbols of Liberty. At her feet lies a discarded crown, symbolic of the overthrow of the English monarchy. On the right side of the Great Seal stands Justice, with pearls decorating her hair and robed in gold with blue sash and red cloak. She is blindfolded, and in her left hand she holds the scales of justice, and in her right hand she bears aloft an unsheathed sword.

The Great Seal itself is shaped as a shield. Upon it a sun rises in a cloudless sky over three mountains. These form the highlands of the Hudson River, upon which two ships sail, representing commerce, without which New York may not have been so well settled. Above the shield a bald eagle, facing right with its wings outstretched, stands upon a globe showing the Western Hemisphere.

A broad white ribbon runs under the feet of the women, and upon it appears the Latin word Excelsior, meaning Ever Upward, symbolizing the idea of reaching upward to more lofty goals.

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