POY 2023

10 | PERSONS OF THE YEAR
HENRY BRECKENRIDGE
PEABODY
By Charlie McKenna
Item Staff
When Henry Breckenridge died
tragically on Wednesday, July 19,
2023, it seemed all of Peabody came
to a screeching halt.
The 40-year-old police officer
was beloved — not just within the
department or at Bishop Fenwick
High School, where he was a star
athlete, but everywhere in the city and
especially in its schools. Breckenridge
had a special bond with the city’s
youth, and it’s only fitting his name
will live on forever at the West
Elementary School playground.
Breckenridge, Essex Media
Group’s 2023 Person of the Year for
the City of Peabody, was “quite an
amazing kid,” remembered Police
Chief Tom Griffin.
“I knew he was doing some
community work, but when the
tragedy happened, all the people that
came forward… it was amazing,”
Griffin said, adding Breckenridge
served on the force for a relatively
short time, just eight years. “For him
to impact so many people in that short
a time is incredible.”
But Breckenridge didn’t serve
the community to garner any sort
of recognition. He did so because,
simply, it was the right thing to do.
And he loved Peabody. And Peabody
loved him.
At Breckenridge’s wake in July,
Griffin recalled the service lasting
“four solid hours” as more and more
people recalled stories and memories
of Henry.
“A 40-year-old kid to have that
many people come out … you usually
see that when someone’s been around
for a long, long time,” Griffin said.
“This kid made such an impact.”
Henry’s mom, Charlotte, said
she hasn’t gone anywhere in the
past seven months without someone
coming up to her to talk about her
son. She remembered him as a “big
kid” who loved everybody and tried to
do his best.
“We thank everybody for giving us
the strength and the knowledge and
the heart to continue his fight… to do
well, to get people to be good to each
other,” Charlotte said, fighting back
tears.
She said those who knew Henry
had different stories to share,
memories from differing areas of his
life.
Mayor Ted Bettencourt, who
coached Henry in Little League, said
he left an “amazing legacy of kindness
and dedication to our community.”
“He will always be remembered,”
Bettencourt said.
To ensure Henry’s memory, a
scholarship fund was named in his
honor — one that Griffin said is doing
“quite well” — and his portrait still
hangs on the wall of the police station.
When asked for a story that
summed up her son, Charlotte recalled
a time when her husband and two
sons, Henry, then just two years old,
and Robert, an infant, were locked
out of the house when her husband
loaned his brother his car. When her
husband discovered he was without
his keys, he wiggled open the window
to Henry and Robert’s bedroom on the
first floor, managing to squeeze young
Henry in with instructions to let his
father and brother in.
But Henry had other plans.
The night before, Charlotte had
baked a cake, which remained on the
kitchen table. And so, looking at the
kitchen table, then back at the door,
young Henry sat down and began
eating the cake rather than opening
the door.
“That’s the kid,” Charlotte said
with a chuckle.
Henry also loved to cook,
influenced by his grandparents, trying
out different recipes and passing
them around at family gatherings —
even making his father jealous by
outdoing his sweet potato pie, adding
a chocolate crust to satisfy Charlotte’s
love for chocolate.
“That’s Henry, trying to remember
what you liked and what you didn’t like,”
she said. “Always a smile on his face.”