This time last year I wrote a column asking whether there might be any takers for Wiscasset’s Boston Post Cane. You know, the time-honored tradition of passing a ceremonial walking stick to the town’s oldest resident to keep for as long as they live, after which it’s passed on to the next oldest resident. It’s more or less a New England thing, like celebrating Patriot’s Day on the third Monday of April every year.

The town of Woolwich next door to Wiscasset has done a much better job in carrying on the custom that started way back in 1909. That’s when newspaper publisher Edwin Grozier, owner of The Boston Post had 700 canes custom made and sent to small communities in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. The original canes were hand-turned made of imported African ebony and topped with a 14-karat gold crown. For obvious reasons most of the towns that continue to carry on the tradition pass out replicas, keeping the originals locked away for safekeeping.

About 30 years ago, Woolwich compiled a list of its Boston Post Cane recipients that goes all the way back to 1914 which they publish yearly in the annual Town Report. Geraldine “Gerry” Edgerly is Woolwich’s current holder of the cane which the selectboard passed along to her in July 2020. Mrs. Edgerly will celebrate her 102nd birthday this coming Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11. You may be surprised to hear Mrs. Edgerly’s husband, Loring Edgerly, better remembered as “Larry,” held the Woolwich Boston Post Cane from December 2013 until he passed away at age 98 in April 2015. Longevity definitely ran within the Edgerly family because Larry’s mother, father and sister were all Boston Post Cane recipients in the town of Whitefield where they lived.

When I interviewed him in the spring of 2015, the late Lloyd Coombs, a longtime Woolwich selectman, told me he’d found their “new” cane in a Bath thrift store. “It’s not an exact replica, but if you haven’t seen the real one, it looks a great deal like it,” he told me. The original cane is displayed in a glass case in the town office. Grozier intended his canes be given to the oldest man in town, although that eventually was changed to simply the oldest resident, man or woman. Lloyd said Woolwich was ahead of the curve in that respect because some of its earliest Boston Post Cane recipients had been women.

Nobody ever compiled a list of Wiscasset’s Boston Cane holders and no one I’ve asked can think of a single resident it was ever given to. In 2017, the Wiscasset selectboard discussed reviving the Boston Post Cane tradition. Rather than use the original cane which had been tucked away in the town for safekeeping they purchased a replica that looked exactly the same minus the 14-karat knob. After the new cane arrived, the selectboard went looking for the community’s oldest resident. “In April that same year, we gave it to Ruth Applin,” recalled Ben Rines Jr. who was serving on the Wiscasset selectboard then. “Ruth lived on Churchill Street and we gave it to her on the occasion of her 100th birthday celebration which was held at the Community Center. I remember Ruth was thrilled by all the attention and carried the cane with her everywhere she went. What was sad was she passed away just a few months after that in August.” 

By coincidence, Ruth’s younger brother Arthur Jones, age 99, was the Boston Post Cane holder in nearby Nobleboro at the same time. Ben knew Mrs. Applin well having grown up on Churchill Street next door to her. “Other than Ruth Applin, I honestly can’t think of anyone else in Wiscasset who ever held the Boston Post Cane. It was sitting in the town vault for years and years and had been pretty much forgotten about.” Ben’s first term on the Wiscasset selectboard was in 1976. He recalled there was a time in the 1980s when Wiscasset had at least two residents over the age of 100, Frank Adams and Charles Plumstead.

I knew both these gentlemen. Mr. Adams, a plumber by trade, resided on the corner of Warren and Summer streets. Mr. Plumstead lived on Federal Street near the Old Jail Museum and could remember helping his father deliver the mail using a horse and sled during the winter. I photographed both men for the newspaper on the occasion of their 100th birthday celebrations. Frank never missed a Wiscasset High School basketball game and was given a basketball from the team to celebrate his 100th birthday. Maybe getting a new basketball is better than getting a cane, although I can’t imagine what Frank did with it but then what do you do with the Boston Post Cane? My wife’s grandfather, Robert Lingham of Littleton, Massachusetts was given the cane after he turned 100 and kept it in the hall closet refusing even to have his picture taken with it.

Following last year’s newspaper column there was some well … let’s just say, tepid interest in tracking down Wiscasset’s oldest resident and presenting him or her with the cane. Times have changed and not everyone shares the nostalgia of the Boston Post Cane. And, not everyone wants to admit they’re the oldest person in town. That hasn’t been the case in Woolwich. No one there has ever refused the Boston Post Cane.

Phil Di Vece earned a B.A. in journalism studies from Colorado State University and an M.A. in journalism at the University of South Florida. He is the author of three Wiscasset books and is a frequent news contributor to the Boothbay Register-Wiscasset Newspaper. He resides in Wiscasset. Contact him at pdivece@roadrunner.com