Randall Lane Receives Boston Post Cane in End-Of-Year Bicentennial Celebration

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Last month at the winter solstice Essex came together to celebrate the last event in the year-long, highly successful Bicentennial Celebration that saw everything from a February ice cream social to the rededication of the Ancient Burial Ground behind the Essex Historical Society to a fireworks celebration for the ages. 

Fittingly, at the celebration Dawn Burnham, who chaired the Bicentennial Committee, scheduled a formal presentation of the traditional Boston Post Cane to Randall Lane, who last year turned 100.  The cane is given to the eldest resident in town, a New England tradition that began in 1909, when the publisher of the Boston Post Newspaper (thus “Boston Post Cane”) commissioned 700 fine ebony canes to be made with a two-inch, 14-carat gold head decorated by hand.  

Today, there are approximately 460 canes in circulation, many having been lost or forgotten. 

Massachusetts Senator Bruce Tarr was on hand at the festivities to present the cane to Mr. Lane, whose son Tim Lane reported that his father is happy and healthy, uses no cane or walker and loves the wood-burning stove that keeps him cozy at home.