New Hampshire State Coat of Arms

New Hampshire does not have a separate heraldic coat of arms. The state uses the Great Seal of New Hampshire as its official emblem, and its central design functions as the coat of arms in official and heraldic contexts.

The design shows the frigate Raleigh sitting on shipbuilding stocks, as if still being built. A rising sun appears behind the ship. A granite boulder sits in the foreground on the left. A U.S. flag flies at the ship's stern.

A golden laurel wreath frames the entire scene. Nine stars are spaced evenly within the wreath. The date 1776 appears at the base, and the inscription reads 'SEAL OF THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.' The seal is 2 inches in diameter.

New Hampshire's first official seal was created by the First Provincial Congress in 1774 or 1775. It featured a pine tree and an upright fish standing on either side of a bundle of five arrows, representing the state's five counties and their combined strength. This colonial design carried the Latin motto Vis Unita Fortior, meaning 'A united force is stronger.'

When New Hampshire's state constitution took effect in 1784, the Legislature revised the seal to reflect a different identity. Portsmouth had become one of the most active shipbuilding centers in the new nation during the Revolutionary War, and the revised design showed a ship under construction on its stocks with a rising sun behind it. That basic image has remained on the seal ever since.

The 1784 design had one serious problem: no one had described its details precisely enough. As old seals wore out and new dies were cut, different artists interpreted the scene in their own way. Over time, unauthorized elements appeared in the design. The most notable was rum barrels on the dock, which had no place in an official state emblem.

In 1931, historian Otis G. Hammond examined existing seal impressions and documented the inconsistencies. Governor John G. Winant formed a committee to produce a permanent standardized version. The committee identified the frigate Raleigh as the specific ship in the design, removed the rum barrels and other unauthorized additions, replaced the Latin inscription with English text, and specified the seal's exact diameter as 2 inches. The statute codifying the new design took effect on January 1, 1932.

The New Hampshire coat of arms is built around the frigate Raleigh and the scene of its construction. Each element connects to either the Revolutionary War or the founding of the United States.

The coat of arms holds two specific founding moments. The frigate Raleigh and the date 1776 anchor the design to the Revolution, when New Hampshire contributed one of the first warships to the new nation's navy. The nine stars anchor it to 1788, when New Hampshire's ratification vote put the Constitution into effect.

The choice to show the Raleigh under construction rather than at sea is significant. It places New Hampshire in the act of building the nation, not just defending it. The granite boulder adds the physical landscape of New England to this founding history.

The New Hampshire seal went through three distinct stages before the current design was standardized in 1932. Each stage reflected a different moment in the state's identity.