14 N 
ATale of Heraldry 
The Coat of Arms in 
America 
By Kev. Lonis H. Buge 
(Copyrighted 1911 by Louis H. Ruge) 
T HAS been assumed by 
eT many that a coat of arms in 
America is fatal to the prin- 
ciples of democratic simplic- 
ity and therefore the art has been 
neglected for generations by Amer- 
ican families, until much of the data 
of armorial descent has been lost 
and very much tangled up in the 
debris of building our great de- 
mocracy. 
But many of the founders of the 
United States brought these  evi- 
dences of noble descent with them 
and their household belongings were 
all blazoned over with arms. They 
severed no family connections, they 
lost and repudiated no honorable 
descent by becoming American pi- 
oneers and building the foundations 
of a great republic. Many of the 
American names date back so far 
that the descent is lost in the pic- 
turesque setting of crowns and cor- 
onets and the lines should be made 
legible before they are entirely 
obliterated. 
While yet New England was a 
colony of Great Britain a few of the 
old families here were honored with 
titles and coat of arms and every- 
where old tombstones and _ house- 
hold effects testify to noble descent. 
A coat of arms was frequently 
seen in Colonial days in New Eng- 
land, the south, and in fact in all 
the original thirteen states after the 
establishment of independence. 
The art of engraving and printing 
seals and painting armorial bearings 
in America began as early as 1730- 
1735 in New England. And back 
of the discovery of America the 
red man had his symbolisms in to- 
tem characters, emblems of  dis- 
tinction perhaps as old as any of 
the east. In the founding of the 
nation there is a coat of arms. The 
very day of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, July 4th, 1776, Congress 
appointed a committee to devise a 
national coat of arms although the 
results were not approved until 
June 20th, 1782. The inauguration 
of Washington was graced by the 
heraldriec arms of the new nation, 
they being emblazoned on the pan- 
els of the chariot in which he rode. 
For over half a century American 
students of heraldry have given us 
ORTH 
-a possessor of a coat of arms. 
S HOR E 
BREEZE 
volumns and pamphlets on the sub- 
ject of the coat of arms in America. 
As far back as 1865 a committee of 
heraldry was appointed by the 
‘‘New England Historic and Geneo- 
logical Society’’ in reference to 
conserving records and _ bringing 
order out of chaos upon this subject. 
Bryce, about twenty-five years 
ago, in ‘‘ American Commonwealth’’ 
mentions carriages with armorial 
devices in the social cavaleade at 
Newport. There is every evidence 
today that the ‘‘alieni temporis 
flores’’ (blossoms of a bygone time) 
are blooming in modern times and 
may become of rarer beauty than of 
yore. 
Democratic though we may be, 
what is there inconsistent in this 
use of a family coat of arms? Why 
openly deride a coat of arms and 
insignias of rank when the most 
pronounced partisan of republican 
simplicity cherishes a longing for 
some mark of individual superior- 
ity? It is claimed by some that a 
coat of arms as a.social practice is 
at varience with our form of gov- 
ernment; that it fosters a passion 
for family precedence, social rank 
and exclusiveness that does not con- 
form to a constitution and princi- 
ples that repudiate these very 
things. But the privilege of dis- 
playing the armorial bearings of 
ancestors can be denied. That right 
cannot be at issue. 
Our democracy and its wonderful 
unfolding is the evolution and 
fruit of aristocracy largely. Why 
should the child despise its parent? 
The ‘‘gentle’ art of arms’’ as prac- 
ticed by colonial ancestors is suffi- 
cient warrant for preserving these 
honorable emblems. It is no sign of 
decadence to hand down this des- 
cent in legible form to posterity. It 
is rather a sign,of decadence to al- 
low them to fault. These symbols 
found upon old documents, plate, 
tombstones and other antiques, 
showing a wide use of heraldic de- 
vices in America call indeed for 
reverend treatment and _ preserva- 
tion. As well might we scorn the 
work of the Congressional Commit- 
tee that resulted in our national coat 
of arms as to repudiate such a fam- 
ily possession. Each of the states is 
Ev- 
ery order of the day has its treas- 
ured insignias. There is not an or- 
ganization, the most insignificant, 
that does not endeavor to distin- 
guish itself and its members by some 
mark characteristic. 
From old Massachusetts, whose 
coat of arms more nearly conforms 
to the laws of heraldry than any 
other state perhaps, to the humblest 
village of the land and the most 
obseure order of the day, the official 
seal of distinction is cherished and 
the privilege may not be denied the 
individual or family. 
The records upon this subject are 
in great confusion in America. New 
York and the south are almost hope- 
lessly tangled up. The records of 
New England are considered the 
best of all because of its pure Eng- 
lish ancestral strain. But there are 
enough families today in America 
zealously and feverishly engaged in 
recovering and untangling what re- 
mains, even if many a knot is cut 
and the ends tied up to something, 
preferably the better lines of des- 
cent. Americans, with their gift for 
ingenuity, will see to it that a few 
difficulties in no way interfere with 
the full unfolding and display of a 
possible authentic coat of arms that 
shall be made to flourish on the 
boulevards from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific to put the old knights and 
ladies to shame; and we may well 
imagine the spirits of a couple of 
the knights of the siege of Caerla- 
verock, for instance, leaping out of 
the way of an American gasolene 
chariot with its blazonry, saying to 
each other, ‘‘What’s the use?’’ 
The renaissance of arms is really 
essential in the study of racial des- 
cent and of practical importance to 
historv. By a knowledge of her- 
aldry many glaring anachronisms 
may be detected or avoided in liter- 
ature, architecture and art. A mis- 
take, like the stars and stripes wav- 
ing over Washington in the famous 
picture of ‘‘Crossing the Delaware’”’ 
in December 1776, when the flag 
was not adopted until June 14, 1777, 
would have been avoided by a 
knowledge of this art. Also the dis- 
play of the Union Jack twenty-five 
years before its existence, as seen in 
the picture of the ‘‘Boston Boys and 
General Gage.”’ 
Zieber in his book, ‘‘Heraldry in 
Amerieca,’’ whose work is well worth 
reading, contends that among civi- 
lized and learned people heraldry 
is not only a pleasant study, but 
even necessary in the higher refine- 
ment and culture of today. Many of 
the classics and standard poems ap- 
pear full of references to this art, 
and operas and musical compositions 
like Wagner’s ‘‘Lohengrin,’’ which 
is founded upon the Knights, cham- 
pionship of Elsa’s innocence, are 
better comprehended. Under a 
careful study and analysis of the 
art of heraldry we begin to see that 
it means something more than a 
mere proud display of the emblems 
of social precedence and that it has 
its place in human history. 
