New Jersey State Symbols: Flag, Seal, Motto, and Official Designations

New Jersey's official symbols are not decorative afterthoughts — they are codified in state statute, carrying legal weight and historical argument embedded in heraldry, Latin, and the occasional well-intentioned choice of a state bird. This page covers the flag, the Great Seal, the state motto, and the full roster of official designations assigned by the New Jersey Legislature, explaining what each symbol represents, how it was adopted, and where the lines of official authority begin and end.

Definition and scope

The phrase "state symbols" covers two distinct categories that are worth separating before anything else. The first is constitutional and statutory insignia — the flag and the Great Seal — which carry legal force in official documents and government contexts. The second is the broader category of legislative designations: state bird, state flower, state dinosaur (yes, that is a real designation), and dozens of others, established by acts of the New Jersey Legislature and codified in New Jersey Statutes Annotated (N.J.S.A.).

The New Jersey State Constitution does not enumerate most of these symbols directly. Instead, they live in Title 52 of the New Jersey Statutes, which governs public officers and the functions of state government. This distinction matters because the Great Seal, for instance, is used to authenticate official state documents and its unauthorized use carries legal consequences, while the designation of the brook trout as the official state fish does not.

Scope and geographic coverage: This page addresses symbols and designations specific to the State of New Jersey and established under New Jersey law. Federal symbols — the U.S. flag, the national motto, the bald eagle — are governed by federal statute and fall entirely outside this scope. Municipal or county seals and symbols are established by local ordinance and are not covered here. Symbols adopted by neighboring states (New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware) do not apply.

How it works

The Great Seal

The Great Seal of New Jersey was first adopted in 1777 — the year New Jersey also adopted its first state constitution — making it one of the oldest state seals in continuous use in the United States (New Jersey State Archives). The design features 3 plows on a shield, representing the state's agricultural heritage. Two female figures flank the shield: Liberty, holding a staff topped with a Phrygian cap, and Ceres, the Roman goddess of grain, holding a cornucopia. A horse's head appears above the shield, acknowledging the state's farming economy at the time of the founding.

The motto — Liberty and Prosperity — appears on a ribbon at the base of the seal. Below it, the year 1776 marks New Jersey's status as one of the original 13 colonies to declare independence.

The Secretary of State of New Jersey is the custodian of the Great Seal (N.J.S.A. 52:1-1). Its impression authenticates acts of the Legislature, gubernatorial proclamations, and official state documents.

The State Flag

New Jersey's state flag is buff-colored — a deliberate nod to the uniform worn by New Jersey Continental soldiers during the Revolutionary War, chosen at the direction of General George Washington. The flag was officially adopted in 1896. The Great Seal appears at its center on the buff background, creating an unusually warm-toned flag in a field of blue and red that characterizes most American state flags.

The Motto

Liberty and Prosperity has appeared on the state seal since 1777. It is not a decorative phrase — it reflects the political priorities of a colony that had experienced both British occupation and early experiments with expanded suffrage, including a brief period between 1776 and 1807 when New Jersey law permitted property-owning women and Black residents to vote, a fact the New Jersey State Legislature has acknowledged in formal commemorative resolutions.

Common scenarios

The New Jersey Legislature has passed statutes designating official state symbols across a wide range of categories. A structured breakdown of the principal designations established under N.J.S.A. Title 52:

State Bird: Eastern goldfinch (Carduelis tristis), adopted 1935
State Flower: Common blue violet (Viola sororia), adopted 1971
State Tree: Northern red oak (Quercus rubra), adopted 1950
State Animal: Horse, adopted 1977
State Fish: Brook trout, adopted 1991
State Insect: Honeybee, adopted 1974
State Dinosaur: Hadrosaurus foulkii, adopted 1991 — the first dinosaur skeleton ever mounted for public display in the Western Hemisphere, excavated in Haddonfield, New Jersey in 1858
State Shell: Knobbed whelk (Busycon carica), adopted 1995
State Dance: Square dance, adopted 1983
State Tall Ship: A.J. Meerwald, a Delaware Bay oyster schooner built in 1928, designated 1998

The Hadrosaurus designation is not a novelty. It reflects a genuine paleontological distinction: the 1858 discovery by William Parker Foulke in what is Haddonfield, Camden County produced the first nearly complete dinosaur skeleton in the world, fundamentally changing scientific understanding of dinosaur posture. The Smithsonian Institution and Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia hold related specimens.

Decision boundaries

Understanding what is and is not an "official" New Jersey symbol requires navigating the hierarchy of sources. Three tests determine official status:

Test 1 — Statutory enactment. A symbol is official only if the New Jersey Legislature passed a bill and the Governor signed it into law. Proposals that passed one chamber but not the other, or bills that were vetoed, do not confer official status. The New Jersey Legislature maintains a full index of enacted statutes at njleg.state.nj.us.

Test 2 — Federal vs. state jurisdiction. Nothing in New Jersey's symbol statutes governs federal insignia. The U.S. flag code (4 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.) is federal law. New Jersey state law governs only the state flag and seal.

Test 3 — Local designations. Hudson County, Essex County, and municipalities like Newark or Jersey City may adopt their own official symbols, seals, or designations by local ordinance. These carry no weight under state law and are not catalogued under N.J.S.A. Title 52.

For research into the intersection of state symbols with official government functions — how the Great Seal is used in gubernatorial proclamations, how the state flag appears in legislative chambers, or how symbol legislation moves through Trenton — the New Jersey Government Authority provides detailed coverage of state government operations, legislative procedure, and the executive offices that authenticate and deploy official state insignia.

The home resource index for this site provides a broader map of New Jersey state government topics, from constitutional structure to county-level administration.

Official New Jersey state symbols, and the statutes governing them, are public records accessible through the New Jersey Office of Legislative Services and the New Jersey State Archives, which maintains historical records of the Great Seal including its 1777 origins.

References

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