Treasure Hunt Over: Williamstown's Boston Post Cane Found
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The treasure hunt is over.
The gold-headed ebony Boston Post cane, traditionally presented to Williamstown's oldest resident for decades, has been found just as Council on Aging Director Brian O'Grady had foreseen — in a local attic.
"One day I was just rambling up in the attic — I knew there were several canes in the attic that my kids used to play with — and I had been thinking of a cane as having a curved handle, but this was more of a walking stick," said Gloria Piner of 645 Main St. "But when I went up and checked on them, there it was, engraved on the head of the cane."
The engraving on the cane's ornately wrought gold head proclaims that it was "presented by The Boston Post to the Oldest Citizen of Williamstown, Mass." So Piner, who had read articles in local newspapers reporting O'Grady's search for the cane, called him last week with the news that she had found it.
The cane's last recipient to be honored was Harry Hart Sr., Piner's next-door neighbor who died May 15, 1985, at age 100.
Hart, a chef for many years at Williams College fraternity houses, was noted, and honored, for three rescues, two of them local. According to an Advocate story dated Oct. 31, 1984, and written when Hart turned 100, he had rescued a North Adams Gas Co. lineman, William P. Burke, when he fell after being jolted by live electric wires in 1928. And when he was 64, he rescued an 8-year-old girl, Kristen Bleau, who had fallen off rocks into the Green River, plunging into the spring-swollen waters to save her from drowning.
Hart had come north from Norfolk, Va., at age 11 with a shipment of horses. Besides his culinary prowess, he was a noted hunter and fisherman.
"Maybe Mr. Hart had given it to my kids," said Piner. "Maybe that was the reason it ended up in the attic."
Her six children, she said, "helped Mr. Hart out a lot, reading him letters and writing letters for him; going to store, going to the post office."
"Several people had approached me about the cane, which I knew nothing about," she said yesterday morning. "I called Mr. Hart's daughter-in-law in California to see if she knew anything about it, but she didn't either, so I was kind of puzzled. I thought, well, I'll just check around the house, but I knew there was nothing in my house."
Then she tried the attic, and found the cane.
"I'm elated," she said. "It's amazing how I could have something so valuable and not even know about it.
"I hope whoever receives it is able to know it's like a prize possession, something that needs to be held onto."
O'Grady, photographed with the cane at the Harper Center earlier this week, said it will be kept safe, and carried by the oldest resident on ceremonial occasions. Recipients will be given a plaque to mark the presentation, he said. Now the oldest resident is being researched, he said.
And the cane will stay at Town Hall.
Tags: boston post cane, centenarian,
