Danforth celebrates 150th

DANFORTH, Maine — Celebrating its 150th anniversary, the town of Danforth was bustling with activity this past weekend for the annual Summerfest Celebration.     The three-day event featured such events as a children’s parade, Summerfest pageant, a road rally, parade, children’s games, relay races, street dance, fireworks and a flea market.
April Doane, coordinator for Danforth’s Summerfest, said she spent numerous hours organizing the three-day celebration.
“It’s been several months in the work and the support has been wonderful,” Doane said. “I’ve had some help from Bobbi-Jo Russell, Tabitha Shea and Sue Langill. The community has been very supportive. The Summerfest has been dying out in recent years, so we really wanted to make this year special.”
A highlight of the festival was the presentation of the “Boston Post Cane” to Bertha Carr Saturday following the parade. Carr is a life-long resident of Danforth, born Oct. 2, 1910 on the Reservation Road. According to family members, she worked off and on for Dr. Rex Crocker as a midwife, cleaned the town office for more than 20 years and helped take care of her neighbors.
According to the Boston Post Cane website, “the tradition of presenting a cane to the town’s eldest resident began Aug. 2, 1909 when Edwin A. Grozier, publisher of the Boston Post newspaper, forwarded to the Board of Selectmen in 700 towns in New England a gold-headed ebony cane with the request that it be presented with the compliments of the Boston Post to the oldest male citizen of the town, to be used by him as long as he lives (or moves from the town), and at his death handed down to the next oldest citizen of the town. The cane would belong to the town and not the man who received it.
Contributed photo
CANE RECIPIENT — Bertha Carr, 99, of Danforth was honored Saturday as she was presented with the town’s Boston Post Cane. With Carr are her daughters, from left, Gertrude, Judy and Tiney.
“The canes were all made by J.F. Fradley and Co., a New York manufacturer, from ebony shipped in seven-foot lengths from the Congo in Africa. They were cut to cane lengths, seasoned for six months, turned on lathes to the right thickness, coated and polished.  They had a 14-carat gold head two inches long, decorated by hand, and a ferruled tip. The head was engraved with the inscription, — Presented by the Boston Post to the oldest citizen of (name of town)  — “To Be Transmitted”. The Board of Selectmen were to be the trustees of the cane and keep it always in the hands of the oldest citizen.
“The custom of the Boston Post Cane took hold in those towns lucky enough to have canes. As years went by some of the canes were lost, stolen, taken out of town and not returned to the Selectmen or destroyed by accident. In 1930, after considerable controversy, eligibility for the cane was opened to women as well.”
The Summerfest pageant, held Friday evening, featured 21 contestants and drew a large crowd to the town hall. Winners in the event were, from left, Elisha Farley, Ms. Summerfest; Adria Doane, Little Ms. Runner-up; Erika Napoli, Little Ms. Summerfest; and Kim Bauchman, Ms. Runner-up.
According to the town’s website, Danforth “got its name from Thomas Danforth who was Deputy Governor of Massachusetts from 1679-86.  The first permanent settler in Danforth was Parker Tewksbury of Cornville, Maine. It is known that he was settled on land in 1830, but may have been as early as 1829. Even though lumbermen had visited the area in previous years, there is no question that Tewksbury’s log cabin, built on a site which later became known as the Morse farm, was the first permanent settlement in Danforth.”
Danforth was incorporated as a town March 17, 1860 by an act of legislation. The census of 1860, the time of Danforth’s incorporation, reported the population to be 280, and even after incorporation, the population only increased slightly with just an increase of 33 by the end of 1870. The population as of the 2000 census was 629.