Branson Buddinger was a historian from Maine and a minor character in the horror novel, It.
He spend the majority of his adult life attempting to write a fully completed history of his birth town, Derry. His work, titled A History of Old Derry, was eventually published in 1950 by the University of Maine. Buddinger takes note of the several violent "tragedies" that had occurred throughout Derry (particularly the Easter massacre that occurred at the Kitchener Ironworks in 1906).
He hanged himself inside his own bedroom closet (not long after publishing his written work). The news and press attempted to cover up his death as an accident.