Town meetings are interesting. An anachronistic holdover idea for local government, these meetings allow small towns to take control of the mundanities of managing a community’s yearly expenses.
In times past, the town meetings were all-day affairs replete with official business, fisticuffs, exhortations, expectorations, great food and entertainments for all. Town business got done and people left satisfied that local government was the best form of government.
The Castle Hill Town meeting met some of the expectations this year and in doing so connected itself to traditions and the Pulitzer Prizes.
A game for long road trips without internet service, Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon is played by connecting one famous actor to another through their movies until a common link is found in a Kevin Bacon movie. This yarn is similar.
Joseph Pulitzer was a well renowned journalist, publisher and publishing magnate from Civil War times. Early on he hired a secretary, Edwin Grozier, to help with his correspondence and managing his empire of newspapers. After working for Mr. Pulitzer and becoming a major editor for the top Pulitzer papers, Edwin Grozier left and bought the Boston Post newspaper. From the 1880s to the 1960s, the Boston Newspaper market was a highly competitive newspaper environment. Towns including Fort Kent, Maine, Rutland, Vermont, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the Berkshires and Providence, Rhode Island, looked to Boston papers for news of the day. By 1909, it was cutthroat competition for increasing the readership. Marketing ploys began to be used to garner readers.
Mr. Grozier had a cartload of mahogany sticks he did not need. How, where or why he had bought the sticks is not known. Probably his wife ordered him to clean out the stables. On Aug. 2, 1909, a letter from Mr. Grozier with a completed cane was sent to selectmen in 700 small New England towns. The town would get the cane, in return giving the cane to the oldest citizen to use in their final years. A story would be written about how that person had lived to such a fine age. These stories would be published in the Post as examples of life well lived.
Living to be old was a rarity at the time. Plenty of advice was given: reading the Good Book daily; a tipple of Grandma’s elderberry wine; profligate living; quiet living; and telling the devil to kiss his own backside. Readers loved it and a tradition complete with legend was born. Mr. Grozier and The Boston Post are to be commended for such a brilliant marketing campaign that continues to this day. From a secretary/senior editor for Joseph Pulitzer, namesake of the Pulitzer Prize, to Boston paper magnate, the town of Castle Hill and myself are connected to the Pulitzer Prizes for Journalism.
On March 16, 2022, at the Castle Hill town meeting, the Boston Post Cane was presented to my mother, Dana Allison, for her many years of service to the community. The cane is on display at the town offices of Mapleton, Castle Hill and Chapman, with its buddies in a hand-crafted case. My mother received a plaque and the applause of the citizens gathered.
How she has lived to be as long as she has I must defer to her. Her birthday will be coming up in May, and of course a big celebration will have to be planned. She is still, humbly, my mom. Thanks to her I can get a bit closer to a Pulitzer Prize. I and my siblings, Melanie, Ewen, Justin and Harmony, have the best prize of all.
Orpheus Allison is a photojournalist living in The County who graduated from UMPI and earned a master of liberal arts degree from the University of North Carolina. He began his journalism career at WAGM television, later working in many different areas of the US. After 20 years of television he changed careers and taught in China and Korea.
