Mr. Charles E. "Chuck" Eaton, the first principal of Horton District High School, was an historian and genealogist who later published The Eaton Family of Nova Scotia. He was fascinated by heraldry, and he felt that Horton District High School should have an official crest. According to Mr. Eaton, the school’s name also connected to the Earl of Halifax, the fourth son of the Honourable George Montague. The Montagues were from Horton, Northamptonshire, England, and their estate was known as Horton Hall. Mr. Eaton arranged for a staff artist of London’s College of Arms to design an emblem, borrowing the griffin from the Montague family crest. The blue behind the griffin and the white/argent represent the waters of the township, the brown represents the land or the earth. The name “Horton” means a marshy land that had been dyked. The documentation from the College of Arms notes that the name stems from the Old English, Horu-tun, meaning a tun on muddy land. It reads: “The word Tun originally meant a fence or enclosure, but soon developed to mean a homestead, village, etc.”

The emblem captures this essential feature of the township. According to Dianne Thompson-Sheppard, the artist of the Class of 1959-1960, she adapted the emblem received from England for use by the school. Although the original school colours were chosen to be black, red and gold, the emblem replaced red with blue, which caused considerable confusion in producing crests over the years. The school yearbook was officially known as The Red, Black and Gold until 1980 when it was renamed The Horton Gryphon, changed the following year to Griffin. Until 1973, the authentic colors were reproduced on the cover of the yearbooks; the 1973 yearbook staff decided to change the emblem to match the name of the book, and thus switched the blue for red, and left out the brown. After that, a variety of colors were used on school emblems.

When the name of the school was changed to Horton High School, the new principal, Andrew Clinch, asked staff member David E. Sheppard, step-son of the original artist, and Horton teacher, to investigate whether the school should have a new, contemporary crest. Eventually it was decided to re-work the original crest, returning the colours to the original, changing the name of the school, and adding red to the enclosing diamond.