In 1985 the historian for the town of Maynard, Ralph Sheridan, wrote an article about the Boston Post Cane’s history in Maynard.  Ralph’s research extended to a number of towns in the area and he listed them all in his article.

In the mid-1990’s, as part of the creating Maynard Web site I reproduced Ralph’s article.  Ever since then people have been sending us updates and inquiries on the Boston Post Cane and the page became an unofficial and rather accidental authority/clearinghouse for news on the canes (at least on the web).

Barbara Staples has written several books on the Boston Post Cane, and we use them as a reference when fielding questions — but we don’t reproduce her fine (and copyrighted) work of scholarship here.

The holders of the canes, by its very nature, change rather frequently.  We do our best to keep Maynard’s Boston Post Cane resources up-to-date and of value to everyone interested in the cane but please note that while this is a labor of love it competes with many other projects for time and it may take several weeks before updates are posted.

If you have a question about the Boston Post Cane that isn’t answered here (and please do look around first), feel free to send me an email and I will do my best to answer it promptly (no guarantees though!)

Thanks for reading.

Dave Griffin

Maynard Historical Society
davebets@mac.com