Wareham’s current Town Seal appears on the Town’s website and on its legal documents. Did you know that for more than 160 years the Town had no official seal? The first Town Seal was created around 1900.

The design of the original Town Seal is associated with Charles Lincoln Bates, a school committee member who was later elected as the town clerk and treasurer in 1902.

The seal first appeared on the Town Report for the year 1900. The selectmen requested that it be used on legal documents beginning in 1904. The first seal is similar to the one Wareham uses today. It shows a small sailboat with a jib and a wave direction flag atop the mast. It is sailing to the right in Wareham waters with coastal land in the background. The date 1739 appears at the bottom of the seal. The phrase “Nepinnae Kekit” appears above the sailboat and is an Indian word that means “summer home.” The name was added because the Indians chose Wareham as a place to spend their summers in part, due to the abundance of shellfish.

For unknown reasons, Mr. Bates redesigned the Town Seal in 1921. The sailboat was replaced with an Indian in a canoe heading left. The remainder of the seal remains basically similar and is the same seal still in use today.