A graphic from the Nov. 28 1969 Red Bank Register article on the creation the town emblem.
By BRIAN DONOHUE
You’ve no doubt seen Red Bank’s unique (and, we think, the coolest in New Jersey) official borough emblem: a circle with an image of an ice boat on the frozen Navesink River at the center. But do you know the story behind it?
The November 28, 1969 edition of the Red Bank Register carried a story about the borough tapping 80-year-old Elizabeth Hammell of Spring Street to design a new borough seal for the town’s 1970 centennial.
Elizabeth Hammell’s design looms over the Borough Council chamber during an evidently scintillating recent meeting of the Zoning Board of Adjustment. (photo by Brian Donohue)
An accomplished watercolor artist, Hammell submitted two designs, one of simply an ice boat and the other with the ice boat backed by the oldest house in Red Bank and the steam-engine side-wheeler ferry Albertina, which ran from the docks at what is now Marine Park to New York City in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.
The town chose the latter image with the background features over the more stark design, although a simple ice boat design does appear on things like the lapel pin pictured below. 
“The ice boat seemed the most representative thing through the years concerning Red Bank,” she told the paper. Indeed, the town remains home to the oldest ice boat club in the country, albeit one that’s had a rough few years dealing with a river that hasn’t seen thick enough ice for years.
Hammell was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Avon and moved to Red Bank in 1920. She worked as a fashion designer during the World War I era and her illustrations graced the covers of many magazines of the day, including The Women’s Home Companion. She died in 1981, according to obituaries and an online catalogue of artists and their work.
That entry on Askart.com says Hammell was married to illustrator Will Hammell and “illustrated most of Hammond’s “Encyclopaedia of Plants and Animals”, and was known as the “Flower Lady of Red Bank” because of her tremendous flower gardens and her paintings.
“Will Hammell and Elizabeth Landsdell Hammell had a commercial art studio and the couple helped found the Art Students League of New York” it continues. The couple had five children and Will Hammell passed away in 1963.
The seal Hammell designed can be seen all over town more than a half-century later: behind the dais at Borough Hall, on the sides of the fleet of borough vehicles, on Halloween Jack O’ Lanterns, on the borough web site. (Does anyone have it on a tattoo?)
In addition to her art, Hammell was known for her something else: her homemade applesauce.
The interview at her home with Register reporter Florence Bruner is interrupted by a visit from the mail carrier, to whom she gives a gift of a jar of applesauce. Now whenever we see the borough embleml, we’re doubt going to crave some homemade applesauce.
Throwbacks are produced thanks to the digital archive of the Red Bank Public Library. redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331 or yelling his name loudly as he walks by.
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