One hundred years ago, when newspapers dominated the communication world, an enterprising journalist named Edwin Grozier sought to make the Boston Post one of the great newspapers in New England.

To draw attention to the newspaper, he decided to hand out 700 canes, one to nearly every New England town. The cane would be passed to the town’s eldest male citizen. When that person died, the next eldest citizen would receive it.

The name Boston Post showed up at a lot of town leadership meetings. Years later the cane was passed to both men and women, and in many towns the tradition still continues.

The Boston Post’s cane idea was far more successful than the newspaper. Though the paper faded away in 1956, the canes still survive.

Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and Tisbury still have their canes. For years, the eldest seniors in each of the three Island towns were honored and presented with the cane at selectmen’s meetings. But that honored ritual has ceased.

There were problems here on the Island as there were across the mainland, according to many town officials. The canes weren’t always retrieved easily after the recipient died. The canes traditionally were passed from one eldest person to another and then given back to the town after death.

Through the years, canes disappeared. Many towns are still missing their canes.

Last month at the Massachusetts Town Clerks Association summer conference, the discussion turned to the problems of the disappearing canes.

“There was a general understanding among town clerks that it is difficult trying to retrieve the canes from the surviving families,” said Marion A. Mudge, town clerk for Tisbury. There was an announcement that someone had found a pin, a replica that could be handed out instead. The pin only costs $20.

Ms. Mudge keeps the Vineyard Haven cane in the town hall vault. She is not happy that the cane carries the name Vineyard Haven, when the formal name of the town is Tisbury. Through her and the efforts of others and the Tisbury Senior Center, the town’s eldests are still recognized. But instead of loaning the cane, there is a plaque at the Tisbury senior center where their names are recorded. The plaque lists the names of the eldest citizens, and there is nothing that needs to change hands after a person passes on.

“It was a tough issue. When people pass away, we had a hard time getting the cane back,” said Aase M. Jones, assistant to the Tisbury town administrator, John Bugbee. “It is hard having to knock on the door of relatives who have just lost a loved one and ask them to give the cane back. It was hard to explain that now is the time we pass the cane to somebody else.”

In Oak Bluffs, the cane is in the possession of the town clerk, Deborah Ratcliff. For a long stretch, Mrs. Ratcliff said, the cane was missing. “We sent out a search party about two years ago,” she said.

Mrs. Mildred B. Wadsworth may have been the last one to have it. She died in August of 2003 at Windemere Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. She was born in 1899 in the Oak Bluffs Camp Ground.

Mrs. Ratcliff said: “It was located in the selectmen’s office in their back room upstairs.”

Roger Wey, former selectman and director of the Oak Bluffs Council on Aging, said he had no idea where the cane was. He said that years ago he hunted for the cane and couldn’t find it when he thought his father was the town’s eldest citizen. His father, George L. Wey, died in January 2007 at the age of 99.

Roger Wey was unaware the cane was in the hands of the Oak Bluffs town clerk.

Town clerk for Edgartown, Wanda M. Williams, has never seen the Edgartown cane in the 20 years she has worked for the town, though the two other down-Island town clerks and the Nantucket town clerk were in possession of theirs.

Laurie Schreiber, director of the Edgartown Council on Aging for 24 years, had no idea where the Edgartown cane was. “We’ve lost it,” she said. She was unaware that Pam Dolby, town administrator, had the cane.

Mrs. Dolby said she inherited the cane when she took over as town administrator on Nov. 1, 2005. “I still have it in the packing tube,” she said. Mrs. Dolby said the selectmen had never given the cane to any elder in town while she was administrator.

Upon learning that the town administrator had the cane, Ms. Schreiber said she was relieved and put in a request to share the cane with the town’s current eldest citizen.

“We need to reinstate the use of the cane and get it to the town’s eldest person, who I believe is Mary Fisher,” 102, a resident of Windemere, Ms. Schreiber said.

There is no Boston Post cane for the up-Island towns as far as Joyce Bowker knows. Her duties cover the affairs of seniors in Aquinnah, Chilmark and West Tisbury. She is the director of the up-Island councils on aging.

She said former selectman John S. Alley of West Tisbury had wanted a cane and years ago applied to the Boston Post to get one.

“I was turned down,” Mr. Alley said.

On Nantucket, the 100-year-old Boston Post cane has been retired. Town clerk Catherine Flanagan Stover said they keep the cane in a vault. It has been out of use for at least 15 years. “There is gold on it. It belongs to the town,” she said. “Often times we hear about the cane showing up in yard sales, or being sold on Ebay. A lot of towns retired them years ago.”

“I am a big traditionalist,” said Ms. Jones. “I like old things. We have missed a few people through the years. It is harder keeping track. We’ve got citizens living in Windemere. They may not really be in our town but they are Tisbury residents,” Ms. Jones said. She said there needs to be a further discussion about the cane and preservation of its role in the community.

“I want that cane myself when I get older,” Ms. Jones said.