The city of Eastport has been fortunate to have had many advocates since it was first settled over two centuries ago, but it lost a special son with the passing of John Pike Grady on September 3. Whether they knew him as John the historian, John the patriot, John the talker, John the collector, or simply "the fellow with the long beard," it seems like he made an impression on a lot of people during his lifetime.

"The bard of Eastport has passed on," says his nephew, Don Sutherland. "His career as town crier, chronicler and icon of Eastport spanned the slow decline of the community after World War II forward to the first faint stirring of a real awakening, which he did much to promote."

Although his mother passed away when he was two years old, John spent a happy childhood in Eastport living with his maternal grandparents on Adams Street. His best friend was Stuart Metcalf, and John was fascinated with the Victoria Cross awarded to Stuart's father William in World War I. John's high school years coincided with the first years of World War II in Europe, and he volunteered to be one of the city's air raid wardens. After graduating from Shead Memorial High School in 1943, the 17-year-old enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and in January of 1945 was the right-scanner gunner in the B-29 Mission to Albuquerque II flight crew stationed with the 505th Bomb Group on the Mariana Island of Tinian.

Thanks to the GI Bill of Rights, John was able to pursue an education in half a dozen different institutions of higher learning before earning a degree in business administration. One of those schools was Black Mountain College in North Carolina, which had a print shop where John could experiment to his heart's content on the different presses. This knowledge and love of printing presses influenced his decision to come to Eastport in 1953 to save the Eastport Sentinel, which had just ceased publication. He was not successful, so he decided to start his own newspaper, the Down East Journal, but it ceased publication when its owner ran out of money. A decade later, when Winifred French expressed interest in providing Eastport with a hometown paper which became The Quoddy Tides, John Grady was there to help. John's name could be found as consultant on the masthead of every issue of the Tides since issue Volume 1, No. 1, on November 29, 1968.

Printing presses were also what John had in common with the late Stirling Lambert on Deer Island. The two men met in 1958 and spent half the night talking about mutual interests. "Stirling always considered him his best friend," says Stirling's widow, Alice. "It was John Grady who got us hooked up with Mrs. French and The Quoddy Tides."

Alice says there are many objects in her house that remind her of John, but she especially treasures a gift he gave her over 40 years ago. "It's my favorite recipe book. He'd been over to the Rotary Festival on Grand Manan and picked it up there. It was very thoughtful. It had the kind of recipes with ingredients that you don't have to go to the store for. You have them all in your house."

Elmer Clarke of Eastport was friends with John "before he was able to grow a beard," but at age 13 Elmer moved to Pembroke and then was away from his hometown for 40 years. "Twenty-five years ago, we renewed our friendship," says Elmer. He and John were two of the charter members of the Knights of the Round Table coffee club, which met almost every morning at the Blue Iris. "We did a lot of talking, but if one of us got astray on the facts, John would say, 'Oh, hold on.' We thought a lot of him, as everybody did."

John kept busy with many causes and never hesitated to fight for what he believed in, whether it was keeping an oil refinery from being built on Moose Island, moving the Marine Trades Center to Eastport and keeping it open in the face of budget cuts, attempting to keep his alma mater, Shead Memorial High School, from being torn down, or securing more financial support for his beloved Peavey Memorial Library, which named the stacks area after him last year.

John was probably most identified with his participation in Old Home Week activities. That's where thousands of people would see him, wearing a big smile and a sou'wester and carrying Neptune's trident, bringing up the rear of the Grand Independence Day Parade. However, John thought the most important event he attended during the celebration was the annual flag-raising at sunrise. For decades, no matter how early or foggy it was, he never missed it.

Wade Wright, a nephew of Elmer Clarke and an admirer of John Grady, writes, "I believe John was the type of person who made the people around him better and also all others, albeit indirectly, through his contributions to society. The passing of one of the old guard, particularly a son of Eastport, is a tough nut to swallow as these types of people provide the basis of morals and values to live one's life on. May he rest in peace knowing that he has already blessed the world and did indeed make it a better place to live and enjoy."