The following article was written by Glenn Laxton and appeared in the former Your Smithfield Magazine in November, 2009. It concerns the current Smithfield Town Seal.
THE TOWN SEAL OF APPROVAL
By Glenn Laxton
Neil Salley loved growing up in Smithfield. He loved the DeCotis Dairy Farm and its wide open spaces, the blueberries, the apples, the swimming.
Smithfield was nearly a wilderness in the 1940’s and ’50’s before the creation of Route 295. When Neil’s parents, Neil and Helen, moved with their three sons to Stillwater Road in town Neil was five years old. He’s now 71 and filled with memories of that wonderful period growing up.
“The State of Rhode Island kinda forgot about Smithfield. Everybody was moving to Cranston, Johnston, and Warwick,” Neil recalled.
Neil put those thoughts into a letter to Town Manager Russell Marcoux in January, 2000, after finding a proposed town seal drawn in the Providence Journal. Having spent his adult life in the jewelry industry at well known manufacturers Balfour, Josten’s and the C.W. Bristol Company, he decided to create his own seal using Marcoux’s as a guide.
It brought back the memory of his Rhode Island Air National guard experience where he trained to be a cook, later landing a job at Brown University cooking and carving ice sculptures. Told he was basically wasting his time as a cook, Neil was encouraged to find a job creating designs that would eventually be used in rings and other jewelry. He did find such work, and it was that experience he drew upon to come up with a seal for his beloved town.
“I whittles around with wood when I was young and knew I could better the proposed design of a town seal which the town never had.”
Neil produced a design depicting Smithfield’s history, a mill, the body of water upon which the town was originally built, apples, the town hall, a church, the Smith-Appleby House and a farm.
There is the sun rising over Wolf Hill and three hammers which depict the town’s coat of arms. Those blacksmith hammers represent Esmond, Georgiaville, and Greenville. The date of Smithfield’s incorporation was always controversial…either 1730 or 1731, depending on which calendar was used: so both dates are on the seal. It is surrounded by a green circle with yellow lettering.
Feeling he would be able to give back to the town where his life happiness began, Neil presented his work to Marcoux, who took it to the town council which unanimously approved it. In the winter of 2000 the town of Smithfield had a new and permanent seal.
Previous attempts at a town seal were unremarkable. Now the town had a beautiful and informative one widely used on letterheads and other documents as well as some vehicles and, of course, the Internet.
“I was very pleased and proud,” that it was accepted, Neil said.
Creating a town seal is hardly the only accomplishment of Neil Salley’s to derive from his hobby of carving and creating. In the rear of his spacious home are tall, multi-colored totem poles spread throughout a wooded area, and in a small shop are the tools he uses to make them.
His wife Jean has been a life long supporter of her husband’s work and proudly points to one of his earliest pieces above the fireplace in their living room. It is a wooden eagle telling folks, “Welcome to Our Hearth.”
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The original artwork of Mr. Salley’s town seal design is on permanent display in the front lobby of the Smithfield Town Hall.
To learn more about Smithfield’s town seal click here: The Death Moon of March and Other Historical Curiosities
