| Notes |
- from Michigan Death Records, 1897-1920 (seekingmichigan.com)
Romanzo M Buck, a widowed insurance agent of Paw Paw, Van Buren, MI, married 34 yrs, father of 1/2 living childen, born on 5 May 1883 in NY to John Buck and Marcia Baker, died in Paw Paw on 10 Dec 1902 of heart failure. Burian on 14 Dec 1902 in Prospect Hill Cemetery. Infomant Gertie Buck of Paw Paw.
- form "Tales, Legends, Myths & Notable Citizen of Paw Paw, Michigan" by Robert R Hindenach
Romanzo Mortimer Buck of Paw Paw, Michigan was a member of the Michigan 4th Cavalry and took part in a bizarre capture on the last day of the Civil War, May 10, 1865. R. Mortimer as he liked to be called, enlisted at Paw Paw on August 6, 1862, joining the 4th Cavalry. This regiment fought in many of the bloodiest campaigns of the war, including the battle of Chickamauga. In January of 1865 Buck was promoted to Captain of Company L of his regiment. Lieutenant Colonel D. Pritchard of Allegan was the commander of the unit. In May of that year, near Irwinsville, Georgia the regiment encountered a group of men and women headed south at great speed. As they approached the party, one woman broke away and took flight. She was captured moments later. To the astonishment of all, this ?lady? turned out to be Confederate President Jefferson Davis, attempting to flee in some of his wife?s clothing. In northern newspapers it was later reported that Davis had been wearing a long, woman?s wig, sun bonnet and a hoop skirt, mainly in an attempt to ridicule the deposed head of state, but it was merely his wife?s overcoat and shawl.
Buck was discharged from the service on July 1st at Nashville and returned to Paw Paw. For a few years he was considered somewhat of a local celebrity known as the captor of Jefferson Davis. However regardless of how much or little he had to do with the incident, evidently his fame waned as the years went by.
When Colonel Pritchard wrote his account of the incident he singled out seven members of his command for special mention and Buck was not among them. Pritchard himself was given the monetary award that had been set aside for the capture of Davis.
R. Mortimer Buck spent the rest of his life in Paw Paw, dying on December 9, 1902. His death announcement in The True-Northerner gave no mention of his military achievements, and his gravestone in Prospect Hill Cemetery is also devoid of any mention of the incident. An attempt to locate any area descendant of Buck has proved fruitless so we may never know just how much he had to do with the apprehension of the head of the Confederacy.
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- SUBMITTED BY CARL JAMES DECKER, DUNEDIN, FLORIDA (history.net)
While he was still a young boy, Romanzo Mortimer Buck moved with his family from his birthplace of Livingston County, New York, to the town of Paw Paw in Van Buren County, Michigan. It was his first taste of travel, and for a long time it appeared as though it would be his last. With no pressing reason to leave, Buck remained in Paw Paw for the next 20 years.
When the Civil War erupted, Buck, brimming with patriotism, found a reason to travel once again. A 29-year-old dry-goods clerk, he was nearly a decade older than many other would-be soldiers when he left Paw Paw to enlist in the Union army. He traveled to Detroit and joined the 4th Michigan Cavalry just after it formed in August 1862. That same day he was made first sergeant in Company C. The tintype at left shows him as a quartermaster sergeant early in December 1862, while his unit was stationed in central Tennessee.
Attached to the Army of the Ohio, Buck's unit fought in the Battle of Wilson's Creek, Tennessee, on December 11. Two weeks later, Buck received his first officer's commission, becoming a second lieutenant. Over the next few weeks, the 4th Michigan Cavalry fought in the Battle of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, before being absorbed by the Army of the Cumberland in January 1863. In late February, Buck was promoted to first lieutenant.
Near Nashville, Buck contracted chronic diarrhea, a condition he would suffer through the summer. Even so, he rode with his unit into the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, in September. The 4th strayed little from Georgia during the next nine months, and finally, on June 27, 1864, it took part in an assault on Kennesaw Mountain. Two months later, the regiment, by then a part of the Military Division of Mississippi, participated in Brigadier General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick's raid on Atlanta in August. Buck received a promotion to captain on January 1, 1865, but during the long campaign around the Georgia capital, he, like many others in his unit, contracted rheumatism. Though he was given a 30-day convalescent leave, he never recovered fully from either illness. (He would be awarded a disability pension of $8 a month on May 27, 1881.)
As the war drew to a close, Buck helped to pursue and capture fugitive Confederate President Jefferson Davis near Irwinville, Georgia, on May 10, 1865. The 4th Michigan Cavalry was mustered out in Nashville on July 1, and Buck returned to Paw Paw to become a merchant. He married Ellen A. Durkee on March 20, 1867, and the couple had a daughter, Gertrude, on November 7, 1874. With his travels ended, Buck lived the rest of his life in Paw Paw and died there in December 1902.
...
- from "The Herald Paladium", 15 Nov 2011
Village receives gift of history by Pam Gehl
PAW PAW -- The village of Paw Paw recently received a gift of its history in the form of a rare 74-year-old $20 bill printed especially for a local bank.
The legal tender with serial number 56 was one of 122 $20 bills drawn on the First National Bank of Paw Paw in 1929. Kalamazoo resident Philip Thoms presented the Village Council with the rare currency, valued at between $300 and $500, at Monday night's meeting. The bill was given in memory of the Thoms family.
Thoms said he received the bill from the estate of his brother Allen, who was a longtime Paw Paw resident. Thoms said he didn't know how Allen acquired the bill.
Village President Roman Plaszczak said years ago banks could have paper money printed by the federal treasury.
Records indicate the First National Bank of Paw Paw had seven occasions since it was chartered in 1865 when it issued those special bills. The last time was in 1929, and four years later the bank failed.
"This is a great piece of our history," Plaszczak said.
"The back of the 20 is a standard back. The front of the 20 is standard other than they put the First National Bank of Paw Paw, Michigan, on it, as well as the bank's serial number and 1521, which apparently is this bank's number," he said.
Some questions remain unanswered. Plaszczak said he is trying to learn why local banks had money printed. He speculated it was a way of tracking the currency. The bill also has signatures of the Register of the Treasury, Treasurer of the United States, cashier Howard Parks and President Robert H. Cavanaugh.
"Cashier and president, I wonder if those are local ( bank officers)?" Plaszczak asked. "We'll probably be able to figure that out with a little time and research."
Village Manager Bradley Noeldner said he's investigating the most appropriate way to display the bill to have it both visible and safe from theft.
"Because of the type item it is and the information we have about it, we want to make sure that it has a proper home," Noeldner said. "We may not even want to have it here at Village Hall. If we could work it out we may want to have it on display periodically at the (Van Buren County) Courthouse museum."
Plaszczak, who is also a history buff, said the bank figures in an interesting piece of Paw Paw history involving a local Civil War hero and the first bank robbery in the village.
Plaszczak said that according to local documents and research, Romanzo Mortimer Buck arrived in Paw Paw prior to the Civil War and worked as a clerk in a hardware store. When the war broke out, Buck, like many men from the area, enlisted in the Union Army.
"He joined (C Company of the 4th Michigan Calvary) out of Detroit. He enlisted as a private, shortly after became a sergeant and eventually became a captain," Plaszczak said.
The cavalry unit participated in more than 100 battles and skirmishes, including some of the bloodiest battles of the war.
"There were a number of guys from the Paw Paw, Kalamazoo, Hartford area that were in this unit," Plaszczak said. "They road through Alabama and Georgia with Sherman. They fought the Texas Rangers, and this unit actually defeated the Texas Rangers. By the time 1865 rolls around these guys, including Mr. Buck, had to be really tough, hard-core guys."
At the end of war, Buck's unit was among those assigned to the search for Jefferson Davis, the fleeing president of the Confederacy.
On May 10, 1865, two of Buck's men found a group of women at a campfire. Buck joined them and after interrogation they learned that one of the women was Jefferson Davis' wife.
"There was this tall woman with the group, and upon further investigation it turns out that this tall woman was Jefferson Davis himself (dressed as a woman)," Plaszczak said.
"So Buck, a trooper from Paw Paw, and a trooper from Schoolcraft captured Jefferson Davis."
At the time Davis reportedly had $18,000 in Confederate gold on him. That gold disappeared, and Buck and others claimed that a Confederate soldier infiltrated the unit and stole it.
However, when Buck came back to Paw Paw he had sufficient funds to open his own hardware store.
The First National Bank of Paw Paw was chartered in 1865 but had no building to house the bank.
Bank founders decided to rent space in part of Buck's hardware store for the bank. In 1868, the safe was found empty of its entire contents of $22,000. Without a lead in the case, the bank hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency, who placed an undercover agent in Paw Paw.
"He finally figures out that it was Buck that stole the money," Plaszczak said.
Buck had buried the money at a family farm near Keeler, and nearly all of the funds were recovered. Buck was convicted of bank robbery.
"He only got about two or three years in the state penitentiary, which I suspect is a pretty light sentence for that time," Plaszczak said.
After serving his sentence Buck returned to Paw Paw, where he appeared to be a prosperous and well-accepted member of local society until his death at the turn of the century.
Buck's name appears on many invitations, lists of committees and records of social functions in the village.
"So it turns out that the guy that caught Jefferson Davis is also the guy that committed the first bank robbery in Paw Paw," Plaszczak said.
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1833 - 1902 (69 years)
Ellen A Durkee, b. 31 Dec 1836, Knowlesville, Orleans, NY 
