The words and art of Tom Hennessey, who died Friday after a year-long battle with hemochromatosis, graced the pages of the BDN for nearly 54 years. He was 81.
His pen and pencil became a passport for him to rise from the BDN’s composing room, where he worked as an apprentice in the early 1960s, and travel the world doing commissioned artwork.
Hennessey’s work captured both the beauty and ruggedness of Maine’s outdoors, whether he was depicting Mainers gone afield in search of their quarry or the state’s iconic moose and puffins at home among the marshes or the ragged coast.
His final column was published on March 1, 2013. In it, he bade farewell to his devoted readers: “I want to thank my five readers for following the trail of words I left on these pages. Moreover, I wish them good luck and the best of times on their favorite hunting and fishing grounds — trusting, of course, that they’ll leave some for seed.”
