In the late summer of 1902, a life of civil service came to a sudden and violent end for a man from Greenwich, New Jersey. Henry H. Buck, a 48-year-old male, was a constable in Cumberland County. His death unfolded in a place known as Bacon's Neck, a detail that would be etched into the local history of the area.
Constable Buck was in the process of serving a warrant for disorderly conduct. The warrant had been taken out by the wife of the man he was tasked with arresting. As he attempted to take the man into custody, the situation escalated tragically. The suspect, armed with a shotgun, fired at Constable Buck, inflicting a fatal wound.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the suspect then turned the weapon on his own wife, who was wounded but survived the encounter.
A posse was quickly formed to pursue the suspect, who had fled into a nearby swamp, a terrain that offered a temporary refuge. The search for the armed man continued, casting a grim shadow over the community. The following day, the pursuit came to a somber conclusion when the suspect's body was discovered in Smalley's Mill Pond. It was widely believed that, fearing he would be lynched by the determined posse, he had chosen to take his own life by drowning.
