Who assembled the final design adopted for the Great Seal of the United States?

Charles Thomson assembled the final design adopted for the Great Seal of the United States.

Thomson was secretary of the Continental Congress when Congress asked him in June 1782 to develop a final proposal from materials submitted by three earlier committees. He combined elements including the bald eagle, the shield, the olive branch, arrows, the constellation of thirteen stars, and the mottos.

Congress accepted Thomson’s design on June 20, 1782. The obverse showed the eagle and shield, while the reverse featured an unfinished pyramid, the Eye of Providence, and the Roman-numeral date MDCCLXXVI for 1776.

Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams had served on an earlier committee, but none of them assembled the final design. The first brass die was cut later in 1782, and the seal was first used to authenticate a document concerning a prisoner exchange negotiated by George Washington.