TURNER – Dean Roberts imagines that wood has a memory, that every person who touches it leaves a trace.

It gives his woodcraft – flowers, spoons, stools, rolling pins, walking sticks and canes – a kind of life.

“When I make a custom cane for somebody, I like to meet them,” said Roberts, who lives in North Turner. “Talk with them for a few minutes. You take a few measurements, but you try to get into their head. It’s that much more special if you know a little history .”

The woodcarver hopes to make a little history, too.

He has crafted a replica of his town’s Boston Post Cane.

Town leaders plan to preserve the 1909 original – passed among the oldest citizens in Turner for 98 years – by placing it on display at the municipal office.

In its place, Roberts’ replica will be awarded to the elder citizen.

On Tuesday, Leota Seawood, 96, will be given the new cane at a senior luncheon.

It may not be as storied as the original, or have a top of gold, but it was crafted with care.

In his home workshop, Roberts substituted the original’s hard-to-come-by ebony with a West African wood known as wenge.

He exchanged the engraved gold with a brass top and the steel tip with a rubber one, aimed at making it easier to use. The result is less ornate but more functional.

The craftsmanship of the original was “awesome,” Roberts said.

The original cane was one of 600 that were commissioned for the Boston Post newspaper and distributed to small towns in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The paper folded in 1957. But the canes remain.

Many towns have preserved them in glass, choosing to give certificates instead to the recipients. And some of the canes have been lost. A few have even appeared on eBay, the Internet auction site.

A least two dozen people have held the local cane, Town Manager Eva Leavitt said. The last was Bernice Mason, a great-great grandmother.

That history meant more to Roberts than the job and the money he made for his three hours of work to make the cane, he said.

“The hardest thing about canes, I’ve found, is that they look easy, but you’ve got to figure out the process, he said. “The thing that fascinated me about this one was who had it before.”

Part of that fascination seems to come with woodworking’s place in his life. It’s a vocation, but not his only one.

Opening doors

A custodian at Bath Iron Works, Roberts, 52, picked up woodworking during a year-long layoff from the shipyard eight or nine years ago.

“That was a blessing,” he said. “I got so many other cool jobs.”

During that year, the Connecticut native milked cows at a neighbor’s farm and worked a camera for public television.

“Doors open,” he said. “You go in and see what’s happening. If you don’t go in, you kick yourself in the butt down the road.”

One of those doors opened when he met a woodworker at a party who needed a hand.

“I said, ‘Look, I’ve never done it before. Give me a chance,'” Roberts said.

He did. Dean and his wife, Patti, formed Wood is Good Woodcarvers.

He learned to appreciate wood that other folks might dismiss. He started cutting down trees around his home and seasoning the wood rather than going to a lumber store.

“If I cut a branch down, I save it,” he said.

And he explores the items that cross his path.

Above one of the benches in his shop hangs an old ice saw, some 5 feet long, with a wooden handle. He picked up the saw from his uncle, who collects antique tools.

The saw’s handle – like the wood in an old cane – spoke to him when he saw it.

When he examined it closely, he discovered engraved initials.

“Man, I got a tingle,” he said. “I wondered who this guy was who owned this saw.”