Robert A. Hanley Jr. received the Boston Post Cane and certificate April 14 as Boothbay Harbor’s eldest living resident at 97 years old. He was born in New York on Jan. 11, 1925.

Select Board Chair Mike Tomko presented the award to Hanley at St. Andrews Village with Town Manager Julia Latter and Town Clerk Michelle Farnham. Hanley’s son Timothy and daughters Ramone Hanley-Warren and Tina Warren visited for the occasion.

In 1909, Boston Post publisher Edwin Grozier presented canes to 700 boards of selectmen throughout Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. The Boston Post went out of business in 1957 and no one took responsibility of the canes, but Maynard (Massachusetts) Historical Society began tracking the tradition in recent years. As of 2016, 500 canes are accounted for and over 600 towns have been identified as having received canes from the Post. To read more about the Boston Post Cane, visit https://bostonpostcane.org/