Ohio Company of Virginia

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
Total Posts:  7658
Joined  08-06-2004
 
 
 
06 August 2013 16:56
 

Another colonial-era land company, one we may have covered before but I don’t remember it.

The Ohio Company of Virginia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_Company) was founded in 1747 with the objective of developing the lands, then part of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, on the far side of the Appalachians north of the Ohio River. At a meeting of the committee of the company on December 3, 1750, it was decided to adopt a seal with the following armorial bearings (punctuation, spelling, and capitalization modernized):

 

"Three deer passant and regardant in a proper field. The crest: A beaver. The supporters: two Indians, one with a bow and arrows, the other with a rifle gun. The motto underneath: Pax et commercium."

 

Unfortunately the company never received a charter of incorporation—required for it to use a seal—and therefore never had a seal cut with these arms. The earliest known emblazonment dates only to 1951, a reconstruction from the blazon. Here’s the emblazonment I’ve just put into our roll of early American arms:

 

http://www.americanheraldry.org/pages/uploads/Roll/ohioco.gif

 

Source:  Alfred Proctor James, The Ohio Company:  Its Inner History (Univ of Pittsburgh Press, 1959), p. 42.

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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Michael F. McCartney
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13 August 2013 01:12
 

Thanks!  I’d seen a B&W drawing of these arms in a heraldry book years back, & suggested to an (AFAIK unrelated) fellow McCartney living in Ohio that he might difference the stag in the typical arms "of the name" from whichever heraldry mill (Or a stag trippant within a bordure Gules) by turning the head "regardant" as in the Ohio Company’s arms & also IIRC adding a saltire throughout Or to the usual red bordure—which I saw & see as sufficient difference.  (Don’t know if he or his family ever actually used these arms, though—lost touch over the decades)

 
Jeffrey Boyd Garrison
 
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Jeffrey Boyd Garrison
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14 August 2013 06:48
 

Nice looking emblazonment Joe! :D

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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14 August 2013 08:31
 

Jeffrey Boyd Garrison;100189 wrote:

Nice looking emblazonment Joe! :D


Thanks, but I can’t take much credit on most of these for the REAA (Roll of Early American Arms).  Just electronic cutting and pasting, especially on the simple ones like this.