William and Mary College:  Its Antiquities; Wm. and Mary Qrtly., Vol. 6, No. 1

Transcribed by Kathy Merrill for the USGenWeb Archives Special Collections Project

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William and Mary College:  Its Antiquities

   William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 1
   (Jul., 1897), pp. 39-40.

                               WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE

                                   ITS ANTIQUITIES

   This college is the only American college which received its charter from the crown, under
the seal of the privy council.

   It was the only college, English or American, that received a grant of arms from Heralds'
college.  Thus, in the Encyclopaedia Heraldica, William Berry, London, is a representation of
the arms:

   "VIRGINIA COLLEGE:  Vert, a college or edifice ar. maisoned ppr, in chief the rising sun or,
the hemisphere of the third; granted May 14, 1694".  (See, also, Burke and Papworth).  Thus,
the college colors are "gold, green, and silver".  Mr. J. H. Buck, of the Gorham Manufacturing
Company, silversmiths, Broadway, New York, has written me on this subject, and the following
is an extract from his letter:

   "I know of no grant of arms to any other American college.  Woodward (Ecc'l Heraldry, 1894)
says:  'The coats-of-arms now borne for the several colleges are, as will hereafter appear,
mostly

Page 40.

assumed from those borne by their respective founders . . . It does not seem that they were
ever the subjects of authoritative grants from the College of Arms, from whose jurisdiction 
the university was exempted by a special charter of Henry IV.  (This sufficiently accounts for
many variations and irregularities.)'

   "'In December, 1643 [Harvard], a vote was passed by the governors of the college to adopt
a common seal.' (Eliot.)"

   In the same letter Mr. Buck identifies the arms on the dexter side of the shield inscribed
on the cup among the communion plate of Bruton (described in Vol. III., page 174, as the work
of Peeter Harache) as the arms of Stanton(1).  Among the college letters is one from Samuel
Athawes to the president and masters of the college, under date of July 20, 1775, in which they
are informed that "he has in his custody the gilt sacrament Cup and Patten, together with the
Bible which was left by Lady Gooch to the College of William and Mary, and which, when the 
times will permit, he will send addressed to the Bursar of that Seminary."  Now, Lady Gooch,
wife of Governor Gooch, was Rebecca, daughter of William Stanton, Esq.; and there can be little
doubt that, when John Bracken, rector of Bruton parish, became president of the college, the
communion plate of the college was kept with that of the parish, and so continued.  The 
college, after the Revolution, ceased to be a church village.
_______________________________________________________
   (1) The arms seem to be vairel erm., and ermines, a canton gu., for Stanton, impaling an
eagle displayed in chief three pheons.  A cut of the sacrament cup may be seen in Buck's Old
Silver, etc.