The passing of the Boston Post Cane is a somewhat bittersweet tradition. On one hand it’s exciting to recognize the town’s new oldest resident, but somber because it means the loss of the previous “holder of the cane.”

So it was at the April 22 meeting of the Woolwich Board of Selectmen when Chairman David King Sr. called for a moment of silence to honor the memory of Loring “Larry” Edgerly. Edgerly, the keeper of Boston Cane since Dec. 2013, died April 9 at the age of 98. His loss means the board will be tasked with conferring the ceremonial cane to its next recipient.

Along with being the keeper of the Boston Cane, Edgerly had also been the town of Woolwich’s oldest veteran having served in the Army during World War II. During the war, Edgerly had been deployed to Iran with the Persian Gulf Command. Geraldine, his wife of 71 years, survives him and continues to live in Woolwich along with other family members.

The passing of the Boston Cane is a time-honored tradition and one entirely unique to New England. Woolwich is among a large number of Maine towns that continues to carry on the custom that began more than a century ago.

It started in 1909 when Edwin Grozier, the publisher of The Boston Post, came up with a clever way to promote his newspaper. He had hundreds of Boston Post Canes made and then gave them away to small towns in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. He asked that selectmen present his cane (it’s actually more of a walking stick) to the oldest man in town. The cane was his to keep for as long as he lived, or until he moved away, when it then passed to the next oldest man. (In the 1930s the custom changed to include the oldest woman.)

All of the canes, and there are plenty of them still in circulation, were manufactured by J.F. Fradley & Co. of New York City. Each was handmade from seasoned, African ebony imported from the Congo. They were all topped with a 14-karat gold head with the following engraving: “The Boston Post to the OLDEST CITIZEN of (space left for the town’s name). To be Transmitted.”

The Boston Post folded in 1957, but the tradition of passing on the Boston Post Canes has survived over the decades — even if some of the original canes have disappeared or, in recent times, wound up for sale on eBay.

In the 1990s Todd W. McPhee, a former Woolwich selectman compiled a list of the town’s Boston Cane recipients. Although his research fell a few years short of the beginning, it does stretch back as far 1914.

Selectman Lloyd Coombs, who was Woolwich’s town administrator when McPhee was doing his research, said the list of Boston Cane recipients kind of surprised residents, including him.

“I had read that when it first started only men were eligible to receive the Boston Cane, but from our list you can see where one of the earliest of Woolwich’s recipients was a woman,” he told the newspaper.

According to McPhee’s research, John C. Preble, who lived to be 104, holds the town record as the oldest keeper of the cane; his reign ended Jan. 28, 1964. The list of Boston Cane recipients is now published yearly in the Woolwich Annual Town Report.

For safekeeping, the original Boston Post Cane is kept under lock and key at the town office. Coombs said the selectmen now present a ceremonial black cane that they purchased in 1990s. “It’s not an exact replica, but if you haven’t seen the real one, it looks a great deal like it.”

Not everyone shares the nostalgia of the Boston Cane. In some towns people have refused to accept it. Coombs said to his knowledge that’s never happened in Woolwich.

Selectmen will announce the new recipient in a few weeks.