Alerted by an article in the NEHGS eNews for April 29, 2009, I immediately checked out the Boston Post canes. Seven hundred canes were handed out to the oldest resident of Massachusetts towns in 1909. Following is an excerpt from an article in the April 26, 2009 Boston Globe.
…The manse where [Manson] Haws drew his final breaths at the age of 95 still stands – fittingly given the
original owner’s longevity – as a rest home for the elderly. Sandwiched today between the hustle of Route 2 and the bustle of a Dunkin’ Donuts, the Second Empire-style house looks like a quaint anachronism. Much like his old home, the ebony cane that Haws once clutched in his weathered hands has survived despite a dizzying century of change.
That cane and others like it are reaching a historic milestone this year. It’s been 100 years since Manson Haws, at age 92, first received a Boston Post Cane to celebrate the fact that he was the oldest resident in his town. Haws was just the kind of man that Edwin Grozier, the shrewd publisher of the Boston Post, wanted to exalt when he devised the publicity stunt. Grozier intended his walking sticks to be “a tribute to honored and useful lives, to thrift, temperance, and right living, and above all, to the superb vigor of New England manhood.” Seven hundred walking sticks were given out in 1909, and they were supposed to be passed from oldest resident to oldest resident in a never-ending tradition.
