Great Seal of Delaware

Delaware adopted its first state constitution in 1776–1777, separating formally from Pennsylvania and establishing itself as an independent state. The Great Seal was created as part of that founding process and has been used in essentially the same form since 1777, making it one of the oldest continuously used state seals in the country.

Delaware had already been functioning as a distinct political unit before independence. Under Penn's charter, it was called the Three Lower Counties on Delaware, and its assembly had operated separately from Pennsylvania's since 1704. When independence came, Delaware had the institutional machinery to act quickly. The seal's designer is not documented in surviving records, but the imagery chosen drew directly from what Delaware knew about itself: its river commerce, its farming economy, and its soldiers already at war.

Delaware was the first state to ratify the United States Constitution, doing so unanimously on December 7, 1787. That act of ratification is not depicted on the seal, which predates the Constitution, but it is the event that gave Delaware its nickname, the First State, and the spirit behind the motto "Liberty and Independence" was already embedded in the seal's design a decade before.

Delaware's seal was designed to represent what Delaware was, not what it aspired to become. The two figures flanking the shield, a Continental soldier and a farmer, are not allegorical. They are descriptions of the actual population of Delaware in 1777: men who farmed and men who fought, often the same men in different seasons. The shield they flank holds the produce of that farming: wheat, corn, and a working ox.

The ship above the shield represents Delaware's economic identity as a river-and-bay colony. The Delaware River was the artery through which agricultural goods reached Philadelphia and the Atlantic trade. Commerce by water was not incidental to Delaware's economy; it was the mechanism that connected Delaware farms to world markets. Placing the ship above the agricultural shield makes the relationship clear: the farm feeds the ship.

Delaware's seal uses a small set of images to describe an entire society. Each element was chosen because it described something real about Delaware in 1777.