Secretary of State, introducing the first of many designs for the state seal, based on a sketch by Creighton: The design was traditionally said to depict the view from U.S. Senator Thomas Worthington's Chillicothe-area estate, Belle View: in 1803, Creighton emerged from an all-night meeting at the estate and saw "the rising sun of the new state" just beyond Mount Logan. Creighton and Worthington both belonged to the "Chillicothe Junto" that dominated early state politics. However, most historians regard the story to be apocryphal, noting that the sun, mountains, and agricultural implements were common in seals of that era. Regardless, the present seal does represent the view from Worthington's estate, now known as Adena, as a matter of law. The physical seal of 1803 followed the adopted design loosely: from behind a full mountain range rose a sun with eyes. Deregulation On February 19, 1805, the 1803 statute was replaced with identical wording, except for the omission of a design for the great seal. The original state seal had long since fallen out of use. Despite the 1805 act being itself repealed on January 31, 1831, no replacement design was specified. Legislators neglected to address the issue even after the Constitution of 1851 left intact the constitutional requirement for a design. In the meantime, a wide array of designs emerged, particularly on court seals. Common embellishments included a plow and recumbent sheath of wheat, a range of mountains instead of a single peak (as in the Creighton seal), and an "ark" (a broad horn flatboat with a roof) floating on a river (understood to be the Ohio River, quite a distance from Chillicothe). The 1847 seal depicted in the Statehouse rotunda skylight substitutes the Ohio with a canal, replete with a canal boat. In an 1860s version, the arrows levitate among the clouds. Besides artistic liberty, some seals reflected confusion over the state's founding year, which was popularly believed to be 1802, the year the original constitution was adopted. Fleeting empire In 1865, Secretary of State William Henry Smith issued a report on the need to reign in the seal's design. Though appreciative of the symbolism behind the 1803 design, he found the state's seal to compare unfavorably to other states' larger, more ornate seals, which also featured mottoes and obverse designs. On April 6, 1866, a Republican General Assembly responded, calling for an elaborate coat of arms: The act