Great Seal of the State of Vermont

A tall pine tree stands at the center of the Vermont seal. Pine trees had been contested symbols in colonial New England: the British Crown's Broad Arrow policy reserved the tallest white pines for Royal Navy masts, prohibiting colonists from cutting them. Vermont's seal claimed that tree as a symbol of the state's forests and the state's authority over its own land.

The Green Mountains appear in the background of the seal behind the pine tree. The range gave Vermont its name: 'Vermont' is derived from the French 'Verts Monts,' meaning Green Mountains, a name proposed by Thomas Young in 1777 as Vermont was organizing its independence. The mountains are not generic landscape filler; they are the origin of the state's identity.

A cow appears in the lower portion of the seal. Vermont's dairy industry has been central to its agricultural economy since the eighteenth century. Vermont produces more milk per capita than any other state, and dairy farming shaped the landscape of Vermont's valleys and hillsides, where the cleared pastures remain characteristic features of the terrain.

Sheaves of grain appear alongside the cow. Grain agriculture was part of Vermont's early economy before the region shifted more fully to dairy in the nineteenth century. The wheat sheaves on the seal represent the agricultural foundation of the Vermont settlement: the crops that fed the population and sustained the farms through Vermont's demanding growing seasons.

The motto 'Freedom and Unity' appears at the bottom of the seal. It was adopted alongside the seal in 1779 and reflects the two founding commitments of the Republic of Vermont: individual liberty, as written into the 1777 constitution, and the communal bonds required for a small mountain republic to survive.