WILTON — A lunch out turned into a bit more on Saturday, April 12, when Barbara Black was presented with a replica of the town’s Boston Post Cane.

Wilton Town Manager Maria Greeley, Town Clerk Madison Masse along with Selectperson Chair Tiffany Maiuri and Selectperson Keith Swett stopped by Salt and Pepper and Sugar Too Restaurant to make the presentation.

“Thank you everyone for coming out to support this beautiful piece of Wilton’s history,” Greeley noted before sharing the story of the cane. “In 1909 original Boston Post Canes were sent to 700 towns in New England. The canes were sent with the request they be presented to the oldest male citizen. Mr. Edwin Gozier, publisher of the Boston Post newspaper at the time sent the requests. Eligibility for the cane was opened to women in 1930.”

“I am honored,” Black said while proudly displaying the cane. “I knew the former possessor of this. I will take good care of it.”

Maiuri asked Black to share one piece of advice regarding good health or keeping one living a long life.

“Always keep a sense of humor,” Black stressed. “That will carry you a long ways.”

Greeley said an anonymous resident has built a case for the original cane. “We are looking for a place at the town office to display that,” she added.

Black was also presented with a certificate naming her as Wilton’s oldest citizen.

About Barbara Black

Black said she is 97, her birthday is in December. The information she provided to the town notes she spent most of her life in uniform [first in Girl Scouts at the age of 10. When Black graduated high school at 17, she joined the United States Nurse Cadet Corps. “My first  position as an RN [registered nurse] lasted 10 years as I gained experience,” she wrote.

Joining the Air Force Nurse Corps as a 1st Lt. in 1959 offered Black new challenges. “After a brief tour at San Antonio, TX, and a course in flight nursing, I was assigned to Japan as a flight nurse for two years,” she noted. Afterwards she served at Dow Air Force Base [AFB] in Bangor, Loring AFB in Caribou and bases in Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Vietnam. Black retired in July 1979 with the rank of colonel.

“My service years in Maine convinced me Maine is the place to retire,” she wrote. “Still loving ‘Life as it should be’.”

History of Boston Post Cane

According to The Boston Post Cane Information Center website, https://bostonpostcane.org/, as of July 2016, 500 towns that had been presented canes had contacted the organization. Below is a history of the cane from that site.

On Aug. 2, 1909,  Mr. Edwin A. Grozier, publisher of the Boston Post, a newspaper, forwarded to the Board of Selectmen in 700 towns* [no cities included] in New England a gold-headed ebony cane with the request that it be presented with the compliments of the Boston Post to the oldest male citizen of the town, to be used by him as long as he lives [or moves from the town], and at his death handed down to the next oldest citizen of the town. The cane would belong to the town and not the man who received it.

The canes were all made by J.F. Fradley and Co., a New York manufacturer, from ebony shipped in seven-foot lengths from the Congo in Africa. They were cut to cane lengths, seasoned for six months, turned on lathes to the right thickness, coated and polished. They had a 14-carat gold head two inches long, decorated by hand, and a ferruled tip. The head was engraved with the inscription, – Presented by the Boston Post to the oldest citizen of [name of town]  – “To Be Transmitted”. The Board of Selectmen were to be the trustees of the cane and keep it always in the the hands of the oldest citizen. Apparently no Connecticut or Vermont towns were included.

At one time the Boston Post was considered the nation’s leading standard-sized newspaper in circulation. Competition from other newspapers, radio and television contributed to the Post’s decline and it went out of business in 1957.

The custom of the Boston Post Cane took hold in those towns lucky enough to have canes. As years went by some of the canes were lost, stolen, taken out of town and not returned to the selectmen or destroyed by accident.

In 1930, after considerable controversy, eligibility for the cane was opened to women as well.

* Some current day cities were towns in 1909.