LEEDS — Louise Grant of Leeds was presented with the Boston Post Cane at a recent gathering of the Leeds Historical Society. Grant, who will be 99 in June, is Leeds’ oldest citizen and was honored with a replica of the original cane which can be seen in the Leeds Town Office.

The Boston Post canes date back to August 1909, when Edwin A. Grozier, publisher of the Boston Post newspaper, gave 700 New England towns a cane to be presented to the oldest male citizen of the town, to be used by him as long as he lived (or moved from the town) and at his death, handed down to the next oldest citizen of the town.

The canes were produced by J.F. Fradley and Co., a New York manufacturer, from ebony shipped from Africa. They were cut to cane lengths, seasoned for six months, turned on lathes, coated and polished. The cane heads were 14-carat gold, hand decorated and engraved. The cane would belong to the town and not the man who received it. In 1930, after considerable controversy, eligibility for the cane was opened to women as well.

Grant moved to Leeds in 1951 with her husband, Alden, and four children. She started teaching in Freeport in a one-room school house in the 1930s, and she continued teaching for over four decades, retiring from the Leeds Central School in 1976.

She has been an active member of the Leeds community, a founding member of the Leeds Community Church and the Kennescoggin Art Club and on the board of directors of the Theater at Monmouth. She remains involved with the church and, as Leeds Historical Society member Louise Sanders said during the presentation of of the cane, “There’s a lot of life in the old girl, yet.” 

Grant said, “I didn’t do anything to deserve this. I just woke up every morning.” On hand to see their mother and grandmother receive the cane were various members of her family, her son Alden, daughter-in-law Barbara and granddaughter Janet and her husband, Jeremy Taylor, as well as many friends and neighbors.