Your Questions | What I know about Biddeford's Flying Frenchman and why Augusta beats Portland everytime
Gracie from Newport writes: “John, this question has probably been asked before and will no doubt be asked again but I’ve got to know — how did Augusta end up as the capital of our great state?”
Well, thanks for the email, Gracie. And you’re right, that question has been asked many times before and will no doubt be asked again, but I’ll do my best to answer it here.
Back in 1820 after we managed to wrestle our state away from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and set up shop as the 23rd state of these United States as a fully independent and autonomous operation, it was decided that Portland should be our state’s capital. Soon afterwards, state officials came to their senses and realized what a dumb idea that was. “Portland?” they said. “We don’t think so.”
In fact, in our state’s long and distinguished history our non-Portland citizens have seldom come together and agreed on anything except that the state capital should be ABP, or anywhere but Portland. So, in 1821 they set out to fix their mistake. A joint committee of the Legislature was chosen to select another place to headquarter state government.
The qualifications for the new capital were simple: The city or town had to be somewhere in Maine and its residents had to be able to prove to the selection committee’s satisfaction that they were not, had never been, and never intended to be partial to anything resembling Portland.
The committee’s first choice — believe it or not — was Hallowell, which met all the criteria. It was within the state’s borders and definitely didn’t resemble Portland.
Hallowell’s only problem was that it was Hallowell. That and the fact that it was controlled by the Federalist Party and the Legislature was controlled by the opposition Democrat-Republicans — today called Democrats. I know they’re called lots of other things, too, but, please, for the purposes of this story we’ll leave it at Democrats.
In these enlightened times, it’s difficult for us to imagine that something as unseemly as politics should play a part in this important decision, but for no other reason than politics Hallowell was dropped from the list of potential capitals.
It wasn’t until 1827 that the up-river town of Augusta had enough votes in the Legislature to get itself chosen as the Capital City, proving once again that the choice was all political.
David from Falmouth writes: “John, I read your column and figured you could help me with this question. Who was the ‘Flying Frenchman’? Did he have anything to do with the Wright brothers or early aviation?”
Thanks for the email, Dave. As far as I know the Flying Frenchman had nothing to do with aviation — early or late. I don’t know if he ever flew a plane. I don’t even know if he was French.
But I do know that Frederick Alfred “Freddy” Parent — the Flying Frenchman — was born in Biddeford in 1875 and was undoubtedly the best ballplayer Biddeford ever produced. After playing for the town’s team and on various semi-pro teams, Freddy finally began his Major League baseball career in 1899 when he was signed by the St. Louis Perfectos.
When early baseball history was being made, Maine native Freddy Parent was often right there in the middle of it. He was 24 years old when he joined the majors, and he played for 12 seasons on five different teams and ended his big league career in 1911 after playing in 1,129 games.
In 1903, Freddy Parent played shortstop for our Boston Red Sox and was instrumental in helping them win a pennant. As a result, the Red Sox went on to play the National League’s Pittsburgh Pirates in what is now considered history’s first official World Series. In that eight-game contest the Red Sox managed to win a world championship.
According to one story, after leaving the majors, Freddy Parent was playing for the then-minor league Baltimore Orioles. One day, Freddy happened to mention to his Red Sox buddies that they might want to sign a promising Baltimore teammate of his who went by the name of Babe Ruth.
As we know only too well, the Red Sox signed Babe and then sold him to the Yankees. No, we won’t go into the business of the curse, except to say that as far as we know, Freddy Parent — Biddeford’s Flying Frenchman — had nothing to do with the Red Sox decision to sell the Bambino.
John McDonald, an author, humorist and storyteller who performs throughout New England, can be reached at mainestoryteller@yahoo.com.
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