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The Enterprise — Michael Koff

Standing before the grave of Harold C. Mattice, in Berne’s Woodlawn Cemetery on Monday, April 28, Charles A. Di Santo reads the story of Mattice’s life and death. Raised in Berne, Mattice was a blacksmith, like his father before him, when he first joined the State Police in 1917, the year it was founded. Corporal Mattice was shot dead on April 28, 1923 — the first State Trooper to die by gunfire — while investigating a barn fire in Morris, N.Y. He was 33, and left behind a pregnant wife and a son. His new granite gravestone says, “He gave his life in the line of duty.”