AUGUSTA, Maine — Recent debates around the state and in the Legislature are a reminder that — like it or not — the state flag is an important symbol of what it means to be a Mainer.
Once a longshot cause, the effort to replace the current flag with some version of the original one that flew between 1901 and 1909 has gained traction while including nuanced discussions over the symbols that characterize Maine. It is creating a rich historic record around the flag, unlike the 1909 shift whose reasons were mostly lost to the past.
On Monday, the House of Representatives voted to agree with a Senate version of a bill from Rep. Sean Paulhus, D-Bath, that would let voters decide whether Maine should restore the original 1901 featuring a pine tree and blue star on a buff background.
That version is increasingly seen at Maine homes and on stickers, campaign materials and tourism apparel. The current flag featuring the state seal with pine tree, moose, farmer and seaman has its symbolic and aesthetic defenders, but younger Mainers seem to favor the old one that is more distinguishable from other flags in the region.
“I knock on doors in my district, and I see it flying out in front of Republican houses and Democrat houses,” Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Auburn, who championed the new version of the bill, said of the 1901 flag.
Debate around the flag has been somewhat partisan. When the House first took up Paulhus’ bill that would have made the switch outright, it cleared the chamber by just three votes. All Republicans rejected the idea, with five Democrats breaking from their party to join them.
Brakey’s version to let voters decide won overwhelming support in the Senate but remained sharply divided in the House on Monday. Just three Republicans broke ranks to support it, while three Democrats voted against it.
“None of us are standing here because of the pine trees in the state of Maine,” Rep. Rachel Henderson, R-Rumford, said. “We’re standing here because of the people in the state of Maine, and I’m highly concerned with what it symbolizes for us to remove those people from our flag.”
Everyone agrees that this version has more momentum than ever before. Paulhus last tried to restore the original flag in 2021. Other attempts went down in 2019, 1996 and 1991. This attempt feels much different than the last, the sponsor said.
“I’ve had legislators and other people who were against (changing) it in the past say, ‘I’ve changed my mind and see the [pine tree] flag everywhere,’” Paulhus said. “It just seems like people have really embraced it.”
One flag expert takes that a step further: “Whether the Legislature passes any law or not, the people of Maine have already made their decision,” Dave Martucci, the past president of the North American Vexillological Association and from the Knox County town of Washington, said.
The reasons for the 1909 flag switch are unclear. After becoming the nation’s 23rd state in 1820, Maine had no official flag until March 21, 1901, when it adopted the pine tree flag with a design credited to Adjutant General John T. Richards.
Records associated with that design noted it was “hereby declared to be buff charged with the emblem of the State, a pine tree proper in the center and the polar star (a mullet of five points), in blue in the upper corner.” Newspapers around the country lauded it, with an article in The Fort Worth Register in Texas calling it a “thing of beauty.”
No official record exists of why the Legislature voted in 1909 to adopt the state seal design. Then-Rep. Willis Hall of Caribou introduced the bill and that, after the House approved it, the Senate sent it along on Feb. 23, 1909.
But Martucci and Maine State Historian Earle Shettleworth each mentioned a theory for the design change. In 1909, a large number of legislators were Civil War veterans, and they preferred a flag similar to those they carried in battle over four decades earlier.
“That’s the one version I’ve always heard,” Shettleworth said. “I don’t know if there’s any factual basis for it.”
But while state seal flag defenders argue it best honors Maine, Martucci said the original design is just as representative of the Pine Tree State, with the blue “North Star” capturing Maine’s location and motto of “Dirigo,” or “I lead.” Buff was one of the principal military colors for George Washington’s troops during the Revolutionary War, with it representing a stiff “tanned deer hide” that represented standing firm for American independence,” Martucci added.
He argued the words and images on the state seal are hard to make out from afar, calling the pine tree flag and the Maine merchant and marine flag, adopted in 1939, easier to see and appreciate.
No matter what lawmakers do with the flag, Brakey pushed back on criticism from a segment of constituents who complain the Legislature has more important business than the flag.
“I think we can walk,” Brakey said, “and chew gum at the same time.”
