The Mississippi Territory Seal

Recently Mike posted on his blog some humorous memes about the spelling of Mississippi.  It is a rather longish state name' but it can be useful in approximately timing seconds by counting, "One Mississippi, two Mississippi, . . . . 

But the spelling of Mississippi once took a funny historical twist.

In 1798, when the Territory of Mississippi was established by Congress, the original area consisted of approximately the lower halves of today's Mississippi and Alabama, excluding the Gulf Coast, which was part of Spanish Florida.

This newly-formed territory needed a state seal, so they had one made in Philadelphia.  It looked like this:

Whoa!  The die-maker spelled this "Missisippi."  It was a pretty nice seal, other than that error.  Still, it continued to be used by the Territorial Governor through the inclusion of the northern parts of the two states (1804) and the coastal areas (1812).

However, when Congress granted the western half of Mississippi Territory statehood, it became known as the state of Mississippi and adopted a correctly spelled seal!

In 1948, the Postal Service issued a state to honor the 150th anniversary of the forming of Mississippi Territory.  On the stamp they generated some comments because they used the design of the original seal: