Reprint: History of the seal of Canton

By Joe DeFelice

MAC is still on vacation in Florida playing softball, so this is a reprint of one of his very interesting columns from last year.

Did you know …

Cantonites see the “Seal of Canton” on the stationery of all town boards, all documents that are mailed out, and on all town vehicles, including but not limited to the DPW, fire, and police vehicles. Canton was incorporated on February 23, 1797, but its seal was not adopted until the annual town meeting on April 4, 1881.

At the town of Canton’s annual meeting in April of 1880, a committee was appointed to “prepare a suitable design for a corporate seal of the town.” The committee consisted of Daniel T. Huntoon, Canton historian; Elijah Morse, a congressman and manufacturer of a stove polish company, and George Walter Capen, whose family went back generations. The original design for the seal was accepted at the annual town meeting in 1881, and it is the seal we are still using today (except the word “Stoughton” was added in 1895). Before Canton was incorporated as a separate town, it was a part of Stoughton from 1726 to 1797. Before that, the area was a district of Dorchester.

As many of you know, a part of Canton has long been called “Ponkapoag.” This section was first referred to in 1650 by John Eliot, the Apostle to the Ponkipog (as he spelled it) Indians. Ponkipog was added to the first town seal. Canton’s second town seal in 1895 added Stoughton and spelled Ponkapoag as it is spelled today. The final town seal was approved in 1895, and it also includes the coat of arms of Dorchester, England. Canton took the castles on the Dorchester seal and added it to the Canton seal as Canton was part of Dorchester from 1630 to 1726. In 1726, the area now known as Canton was part of Stoughton, which also had been part of Dorchester.

In this country in the early years, we were at liberty to adopt any design for a seal, and on their seals, many towns represent some incident of their early history or subsequent development. Back in 1880, the Canton committee was “as first disposed to represent on the town seal some event connected with Canton history, and as a result, decided to use John Eliot’s preaching to the Indians at Ponkipog.” Next, the committee adopted and added on the seal the crest of the triple-towered castle used by Dorchester in old England from which town the early settlers of Dorchester immigrated, many into what would become the town of Canton.

The last paragraph of the “Report of the Committee on Town Seal” is especially interesting, and reads as follows:

“It was also a custom in ancient days to choose a device for a shield which should be connected in some way with the name of the bearer; this was called ‘canting’ heraldly. A division of a shield smaller than a quarter, usually the right, formed by a perpendicular line from the top of the shield meeting a horizontal line from the side, is called a canton, and your committee has adopted this elusive custom of old, and placed on the shield a canton, alluding to the name of the town.”

On Canton’s first town seal, the committee, on the border which surrounds the shield, placed the word “Ponkipog” with the date of 1650, which was the earliest mention of it. On the opposite side, the present name of our town “Canton” and the date “1797,” which is when it received its Act of Incorporation.

Fourteen years later in 1895, “Stoughton” was added with the date of its incorporation, 1726, along the right side of the border, moving Canton to the bottom center. This is the seal still in use today.

The report of the Committee on Town Seal was accepted and the design adopted as the seal of the town of Canton on April 4, 1881.

So there you have it, the history of the seal of Canton.

That this is all for now folks. See you next week.

Joe DeFelice can be reached at manaboutcanton@aol.com.

Share This Post

Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=38412