MAMassachusetts State Symbols

The mayflower is the symbol most people attach to Massachusetts, and the state chose it the hard way. In 1918 the legislature let schoolchildren vote between the mayflower and the water lily, the mayflower won, and a low creeping woodland plant named after the ship that reached Plymouth in 1620 became the state flower. Almost every other Massachusetts emblem works the same way, pointing back at either the founding story or the cod-and-cranberry economy that paid for it.

Official state symbols

What is on the Massachusetts state flag

The flag is a plain white field with the state coat of arms in the centre, and every element of that coat of arms is legislated. The shield is blue and carries a Native American figure holding a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other, the arrow pointed downward to signal peace. A silver five-pointed star sits beside his shoulder, marking Massachusetts as one of the original thirteen states. Above the shield, a blue and gold wreath supports the crest: a bent arm gripping a broadsword, which is the picture version of the motto about seeking peace by the sword. A blue ribbon carrying that Latin motto wraps the bottom.

The design was fixed as a flag in 1908. Until 1971 the reverse side showed a green pine tree on a blue shield, the old colonial emblem, and the state simplified the flag that year so both sides match. In 2021 the legislature created a commission to study replacing the seal and flag, largely because of how the Native figure and the sword above his head read together. The 1908 design remains in use while that work continues.

The seal and the Sacred Cod

The arms on the flag come from a 1780 design by Nathan Cushing, approved as the young Commonwealth cut its ties to British heraldry, and the version in use today was standardised in 1898. The figure on the shield was drawn from images of Algonquian people of the region, and the star and the downward arrow were added deliberately as peace-and-union markers rather than decoration.

The other emblem Massachusetts treats as semi-sacred is not on the flag at all. A carved wooden codfish, the Sacred Cod, has hung in the chamber of the House of Representatives since 1784, a reminder that the cod fishery built Boston's merchant fortunes. The legislature made cod the official state fish in 1974. When Harvard students stole the carving in 1933, the House adjourned.

Symbols that surprise people

• Two competing sweets. Boston cream pie became the state dessert in 1996 after a push from Norton schoolchildren, beating the toll house cookie and Indian pudding. The cookie got its own title a year later as state cookie, on the grounds that it was invented at the Toll House Inn in Whitman.
• An official state heroine. Deborah Samson, who enlisted in the Continental Army disguised as a man, was named state heroine in 1983.
• Dinosaur tracks as the state fossil. Adopted in 1980, the tracks are footprints pressed into Connecticut River valley sandstone, not bones.
• A state polka. "Say Hello to Someone from Massachusetts" was designated in 1998, separate from the state song and the state folk dance, which is the square dance.
• Corn muffin and navy bean. The corn muffin became the official state muffin in 1986 and the navy bean, the bean of Boston baked beans, was designated in 1993.

Symbols of bordering states

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