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Great Seal of California
reprint from California Blue Book 1909 State Printing Office, Sacramento, CA
W. W. Shannon, Superintendent of State Printing
researched by Les Krames

At the time when the question of designing the great seal for the new State was being agitated in the Constitutional Convention which met in Monterey in 1849, there happened to be sojourning temporarily in that little town an accomplished and cultivated officer of the United States Army, Major Robert Selden Garnett. He was a gentleman of modest demeanor, and excelled in the use of his pencil. One evening he sketched a design for a 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 knowledge of the source whence it had come would prevent its adoption. There existed at that time quite a hostility between the military authorities and the nascent civil powers, and there was an especial distrust of the secret mission of Thomas Butler King, with which Garnett was understood to be connected. Caleb Lyon, one of the clerks of the convention, learned of the design, and readily obtained the consent of Garnett to appropriate it 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. It represented the figure of Minerva, with the Golden Gate, and a ship in full sail in the foreground, and the Sierra Nevada range in the background, with the word "Eureka" above. The design was referred to a committee, and on September 29, 1849, the report of the committee was considered by the Convention.

W. E. Shannon deemed the design a most happy one, but more appropriate for a coat of arms than for a seal. He said that it was unusual for a seal to contain a motto, and that it ordinarily comprehended the main emblems, and the words "Great Seal of the State." An explanation accompanying the design was entered in the Journal, as follows:
Around the bend of the ring are represented thirtyone stars, being the number of States of which the Union will consist upon the admission of California. The foreground figure represents the Goddess Minerva, having sprung full grown from the brain of Jupiter. She is introduced as a type of the political birth of the State of California, without having gone through the probation of a territory. At her feet crouches a grizzly bear feeding upon the clusters from a grapevine, emblematic of the peculiar characteristics of the country. A miner is engaged with his rocker and bowl at his side, illustrating the golden wealth of the Sacramento, upon whose waters are seen shipping, typical of commercial greatness; and the snow-clad peaks of the Sierra Nevada make up the background, while above is the Greek motto "Eureka" (I have found it), applying either to the principle involved in the admission of the State, or the success of the miner at work.

After various amendments had been suggested, the matter was laid on the table. On October 2d the report of the committee was again considered. Rodman M. Price submitted a resolution that the design for the seal reported by the committee be accepted. O. M. Wozencraft submitted the following, which was rejected: "That the seal be amended by striking out the figures of the gold-digger and the bear and introducing instead bags of gold and bales of merchandise." M. G. Vallejo submitted an amendment that the bear be taken out of the design; or, if it do remain, that it be represented as made fast by lasso in the hands of a vaquero.

After the debate, the amendment proposed by Vallejo was rejected by a vote of sixteen to twenty-one. Price's resolution was then adopted. W.S. Sherwood moved that the seal be the "coat of arms" of the State of California, and the motion was then carried by a vote of twenty-one to sixteen. Price then submitted a resolution that Lyon be authorized to superintend the engraving of the seal; that he furnish the same, in the shortest possible time, to the Secretary of the Convention, with a press and all necessary appendages, and that the sum of $1000 be advanced to him in full compensation for the design and seal. This resolution was not considered until the 11th, when a substitute was adopted, authorizing Lyon to superintend the engraving and to furnish the seal as soon as possible to the Secretary of State under the Constitution; and the sum of $1000 was to be paid, in full compensation for the design, seal, press, and all appendages. It was also resolved that the words "The Great Seal of the State of California" be added to the design. Henry W. Halleck inquired if any gentlemen present knew what had become of the original design, and that the gentleman by whom it was designed (Major Garnett) requested that it should be found if possible and handed to the gentleman who occupied the chair. Mr. Sherwood said that he believed the seal
was not the entire production of the gentleman who had been authorized to have it engraved, and that Lyon did not claim it as such. He said that the original design had been given to Lyon by a gentleman who did not wish his name made public, but expressed a desire, in a confidential letter to Lyon, that he (Lyon) might be known as the author.

The bear was added chiefly to gratify Major J. R. Snyder and the men of the Bear Flag revolution. Then was added the figure of a man with an uplifted pickax, as an emblem of the great mining interests of the country.
There is some dispute as to whether Lyon ever got the $1000 voted him by the convention. The following article was published in the Alta California of February 19, 1850, and presumably written by Edward Gilbert, the editor, a member of the Constitutional Convention, and one of the two Congressmen elected from California at the first election of 1849.

Continued...