The buttons and round badge in the photo looked exactly the same as those in the box. And the officer in the photo was standing in front of Victorian-style commercial buildings, long since been razed, that were adjacent to the then-customhouse in Newport City, Vt. Customs eventually moved its offices, but its early home still stands.

Early 1900s brass buttons and badge from a Customs Service uniform obtained at an auction.

MacKenzie outbid everyone else and donated the items to the port of Highgate Springs, Vt., where they were placed on display with other U.S. Customs and Border Protection memorabilia. No one could identify the officer, but nobody doubted that he had been a Customs inspector.

No one doubted it, that is, until two Canadian postcard collectors came across the same postcard in their personal collections. Their cards had notes on the back identifying the officer as one Joseph Manogue of the Newport City Police Department. Manogue had been killed in 1917 by a gun shot to his neck. He died while helping another officer arrest a violent suspect. Officer Manogue's last words reportedly had been, "Hold him, I'm done for."

Officer Joseph Manogue of the Newport City Police Department, circa 1917.

It was almost like two astronomers discovering the same asteroid at the same time-in other words, serendipity: NCPD Chief Paul Duquette had long been looking for a photograph of his lost officer to send to the National Law Enforcement Officers' Memorial in Washington, D.C. Word of his search had found its way into antique collectors' trade magazines. Though the two collectors knew nothing of each other's find, they both donated their copies to the NCPD.

Chief Duquette was so pleased to get the copies that he made sure the story appeared on the front page of the local newspaper. The unknown officer was now known to everybody, including CBP officers at the port of Highgate Springs.

So he wasn't a Customs officer after all. But he was law enforcement. Thus, deserving the respect that all officers do who fall in the line of duty, two members of CBP's Ceremonial Honor Guard conveyed the original photo to the Newport City Police Department in a formal ceremony on February 24, 2004. Local television's nightly news featured the story of the patrolman who had come home almost 90 years after his death.

Of course, Highgate Area Port Director James McMillan could simply have mailed the picture to the police department. Why make such a fuss about returning a photograph?

The CBP staff at Highgate Springs--all of us--believed we owed it to the fallen officer: The man he died helping was a U.S. Immigration Officer.

On February 24, 2004, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner presented CBP Officer Jose E. Melendez-Perez with a monetary award for his outstanding actions on August 4, 2001, when he denied Mohamed al-Qahtani entry into the United States. Al-Qahtani is a suspected terrorist with ties to Mohamed Atta, the key figure in the 9/11 hijackings. (See the January/February 2004 issue of Customs and Border Protection Today for the full story.)