May 10, 2023
Natick Town Meeting voted on May 4, 2023 to adopt a new Town Seal effective September 1, 2023, and to discharge the Town Seal Review Committee.
The committee acknowledges all who participated in the process to establish a new seal. This site will be maintained as a resource.
Under state law, the Town Clerk is the custodian of the seal.
"Town Seal Review Committee will have up to seven individuals appointed by the Moderator, said committee to include persons suited to the charge of the committee by their interest and familiarity with history, design, and civic participation, and whose charge shall be to review the history of Town Seals in Natick; to propose a new Town Seal after a public process that shall include consultation with a diverse group of stakeholders including members of Indigenous communities; to hold at least one public forum; and to provide a report and recommendation to a future Town Meeting that shall consider implementation of a new seal.” (2020 Fall Town Meeting, Article 16)
All towns in the Commonwealth are required to have an official seal. The seal is used by the Town Clerk in the form of an embosser to notarize certain official documents coming from the town. In 1980, Natick Town Meeting voted to make a new official seal from an image that was created by a town resident in 1951. Currently, the embosser the town uses has a simplified version of this officially adopted imagery. Below is the image the embosser makes, as well as a digital image of the seal that is used on the town website and has been variously modified by many town departments.
The official seal depicts, in the center, an image of John Elliot preaching to Indigenous peoples with the years of Natick's founding and incorporation surrounding it; this image is placed atop an image of a bible with a tree protruding from the top with the text "Natick" and "Massachusetts" draped at the top and bottom of the image (note the latter details is not incorporated on the official embosser).
The official seal, embosser, and department logos should be consistent, although they currently are not.
Fall 2021 Update for TM.pdfXgD5et-Natick_Seal_Presentation_Finance_Committee_Revised_Motion.pdf