Melville Fuller

“ Hovey, 21 Pick. 428: 'A corporation as well as an individual person may use and adopt any seal. They need not say that it is their common seal. This law is as old as the books. Twenty may seal at one time with the same seal.'
The general rule is 'that when a deed is executed, or a contract is made on behalf of a state by a public officer duly authorized, and this fact appears upon the face of the instrument, it is the deed or contract of the state, notwithstanding that the officer may be described as one of the parties, and may have affixed his individual name and seal. ”

“ As to private corporations, where authority is shown to execute a contract under seal, the fact that a seal is attached with intent to seal on befalf of the corporation, is enough though some other seal than the orlinary common seal of the company should be used. ”

“ The board of commissioners was constituted by statute to carry the powers of the municipal corporation called the District of Columbia into effect. The commissioners could adopt for the corporation any seal they chose, whether intended to be permanently used, or adopted for the time being. When, acting officially, as in this instance, they signed and sealed the instrument as for the corporation, their signatures and seals bound the corporation as by a specialty. ”