Great story, thanks for sharing it with us.
If you can still read the serial number on that rod you can call Orvis and they can tell you who and when it was made. They might even tell you who the original owner was.
I worked with a man who has now since passed that was the former police chief in Mt. Vernon NY. He was an avid fly fisher who was one of the original members of the Henryville Fly Fishers Club in PA. In any event a friend of his had passed and his widow asked Jerry to sell off his rods and reels. Jerry called me into his office one afternoon and told me in no uncertain terms that he wanted me to buy a Orvis Battenkill cane rod with a Hardy Perfect reel that he had from his friends estate. I think I paid $250.00 for both rod and reel. I called Orvis and gave them the rods serial # and learned that it had been made by Wes Jordan in March 1956. I still have that rod, 30 years later, stashed away in my gun safe.