West Bath resident Hugh Dunphy (middle) after receiving the Boston Post Cane award recognizing him as the oldest person in the town. Paul Bagnall / The Times Record

West Bath honored its oldest resident with a Boston Post Cane during a ceremony Tuesday.

Hugh Dunphy, 94, received the cane during an event at the fire department. Two 93-year-old women, Florence Merry and Kathleen Rogers, were also honored at the ceremony.

“In retrospect, you don’t want to be thought of as the oldest person around, but it is what it is, so you take it for what it’s worth,” Dunphy said.

Dunphy has lived in West Bath with his wife, Evelyn, for 35 years.

Boston Post Canes are traditionally awarded by municipalities to their oldest resident. The practice started with the now-shuttered Boston Post newspaper, which began awarding the canes in 1909. Women can also be recognized as Boston Post Cane recipients, but that only changed in 1930.

Dunphy plans on displaying the Boston Post Cane in the West Bath Town Office; the history of the cane will be displayed next to it.

Merry said she felt like an old lady when she got the call saying she was the runner-up for the Boston Post Cane. She had lived in many different places in Massachusetts before coming up to live in Maine when she and her husband Ralph retired.

Merry and her husband built their house in Maine on land their family has owned since 1930. Merry plans to spend the rest of her life surrounded by her family in West Bath.