While visiting the website “West Jersey and South Jersey Heritage<\/a>,” I found this picture of the seal of West Jersey. It took me by surprise.<\/p>\n This picture of the great seal can be found in John E. Pomfret’s The New Jersey Proprietors and Their Lands<\/em>, page 38, next to the great seal of East New Jersey, which is far more pedestrian. The artistic qualities of the West Jersey seal, along with the date of 1687, convince me that it must have been the creation of Daniel Coxe, who became governor that year. Who else would have been so fanciful? Not the sturdy Quakers of West Jersey. Sadly, Pomfret does not say where he got the picture. The inscription on the seal reads thus:<\/p>\n SIGILLUM PROUINCIAE CAESARIS OCCIDENTALIS IN AMERICA – 1687 Translation:<\/p>\n Seal of the Province of Jersey West in America – 1687 I rather suspect that Daniel Coxe was far more interested in seeing that what was due to Caesar was rendered to him than the Quakers were. Speaking of Caesar, you will see that the Province of Jersey is rendered as Caesaris in Latin. In its early days, New Jersey was often called Nova Caesarea. For a very clear explanation of why Jersey was also called Caesarea, read this from Bob Barnett at West Jersey Heritage<\/a>.<\/p>\n New Jersey was named after the old Isle of Jersey, one of the Channel Islands, between France and England, where Sir George Carteret sheltered Prince Charles during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. Once he was king, Charles expressed his gratitude by granting Carteret half of the peninsula that was taken from the Dutch in 1664, and the king himself named it Nova Caesarea, after the home of Sir George.<\/p>\n As Bob Barnett points out, there is no obvious reason why the Isle of Jersey should be known as Caesarea, since Caesar had outposts in many places and so far, no obvious archeological sites of Roman settlements have been discovered on Jersey. But in this case, usage trumps history.<\/p>\n In The Judicial and Civil History of New Jersey<\/em>, William Whitehead described how land titles were created when a warrant for survey was signed by the Governor and his Council, and \u201a\u00c4\u00faauthenticated by the great seal of the province\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 (p.82). I have not seen an original warrant or survey with its seal. What I have seen are the copies made by the registers and kept with the proprietors\u201a\u00c4\u00f4 records, sans seal. Presumably, the owner of the property would have the original survey which would sport the seal. Perhaps it\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s time to look on eBay (dreadful thought). Presumably, the seal would have been used on governmental documents also. Good excuse for a trip to the State Archives at Trenton.<\/p>\n A picture of the seal of East New Jersey appears in Wm. A. Whitehead\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s East Jersey Under the Proprietary Governments<\/em>, on page 181. He wrote that the seal was found impressed on certain documents in possession of the N. J. Historical Society. He did not know who had designed the seal and made no reference to the West Jersey seal.<\/p>\n Owning a seal was quite common in the 17th and 18th centuries. Every person capable of writing a letter needed to have one. Letters were not sealed the way they are today. They were not stuffed into an envelope; they were folded over, then a drop of wax on the back was pressed flat with a seal, usually affixed to a finger ring. These smallish seals were also used when important documents were signed; they would appear just to the right of a person\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s signature.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodspeedhistories.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/WNJ-Seal-901x1024.jpg\" "\\"WNJ-Seal\\""){kind=spacer}
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\nREDITE CAESARI QUAE CAESARIS<\/p>\n
\nRender to Caesar what is Caesar’s.<\/p>\n\u201a\u00c4\u00faIn witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal\u201a\u00c4\u00f9<\/span><\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodspeedhistories.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/ReadingSeal1695.png\" "\\"ReadingSeal1695\\"")
<\/a>An example of a personal seal after it has been pressed into soft wax is this belonging to John Reading dated 1695. The illustration, copied from a pdf of the book Genealogical and Biographical Memorials of the Reading, Howell, Yerkes, Watts, Latham and Elkins Families<\/em> by Josiah Granville Leach,\u00ac\u2020 is too blurry to see the details.<\/p>\n