Kingsley – The following was read at the marking of the grave of Rufus Kingsley by the

D. A. R: “Rufus Kingsley was a drummer boy in the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, then in his 13th year.  He attended the celebration on the completion of the monument June 17, 1843, and began the reveille at sunrise standing on a platform on the monument, 200 ft. above the ground, using the drum he had played at the battle.  He came to Susquehanna county in 1809.  His wife was Lucinda Cutler.  Both are buried in the Hillside cemetery, Brooklyn.  Mr. Kingsley died May 16, 1846, aged 83 years, 3 months and 25 days, having been born at Windom, Ct., February 1, 1763.  Mrs. Kingsley died three days later, aged 79 years.  They had been married 60 years.” [The Battle of Bunker Hill was really fought on Breed’s Hill.  The family of Stephen Breed came to Susquehanna County in 1813 and settled on the Adam Miller farm, Mr. Miller being the second person to file his deed in Susquehanna County, then Luzerne County, immediately after Ozias Strong, of Great Bend.]  ALSO One of the oldest landmarks in East Kingsley and this township, is being removed.  It is the house known as the former home of the Misses Titus, on the road between Kingsley and Harford, and now owned by W. W. Wilmarth and sons.  The old house is being torn down and a smaller house being built near-by to be used as a tenant house.

Susquehanna – About 50 youths took up their autumn course in the apprentice schools of the Erie shops a few days ago.  Before entering the shops all apprentices must undergo an examination to determine their preliminary education.  The age to enter is from 16 to 21 years.

ALSO Ward Palmer, while cranking an automobile, received a blow in the face, losing two teeth and receiving other bruises about the head.

St. Joseph – Miss Margaret Sweeney has resumed her work as an instructor in the Indian School, at Carlisle, PA.

Thompson – Joseph Blain, formerly of this place, who for the past year has been business manager of the Wayne County Citizen, has accepted a position with a big printing firm in
Toledo, Ohio.

Gibson – Byron Tiffany, Burr Wilder and Leo Manzer left for Johnson City last week, where they expect to make their future home.  Charles Harding, after spending the summer at the home of his grandmother, Mrs. Mary Harding, also left last week for his home in Johnson City.

Fairdale, Jessup Twp. – Herman Olmstead returned to State College, Monday, where he has been engaged to teach.

Elk Lake – Miss Lizzie Biesecker has secured a position in the telephone exchange at Montrose.

Great Bend – Miss Loretta Sullivan, of this place, and Michael Donahue, of Binghamton, were married in St. Lawrence’s Catholic church on Sept. 19th, by Rev. Father Mack.

Uniondale – The dates of the Tri-County Fair are Sept. 26, 27, 28, and the management expects one of the biggest fairs yet held.  Races are scheduled for Sept. 27th and 28th.  Purses of $800 are offered for four races.  It is expected that a Wild West show and a vaudeville troupe will give free entertainments.

Pleasant Valley, Auburn Twp.  – Last Saturday Isaac Giffin cut a bee tree in Sam Reimel’s woods and found about 80 lbs. of honey.

Lynn, Springville Twp. – Ernest France has recently purchased a gasoline washing machine, which is appreciated by his lady folks. ALSO  Gorden H. Fish, of the U. S. Navy, is home on a 10 day furlough. He is looking fine, although tanned up by exposure to sun and wind.

Forest City – Gerritt Gardner, Esq. was a business caller here, his former home. On his return on the trolley he saw a large red fox that was killed by a preceding car.  He states it was a fine specimen.

Springville – Stuart Riley & Son, who have the agency for the Dodge Bros. automobiles for 14 townships in the county, tell us they propose to push the sale of these cars the coming year and will do some effective advertising.  Griffing & Woodward sell this car in New Milford and vicinity.

Hop Bottom – Ambrose S. Payne, of Montrose, with his men are busy re-decorating the interior of the Methodist church.  Volunteer workers, under the direction of Hersey G. Wright, are shingling the church roof and in a few days painters will be at work on the exterior of the church and parsonage.  The plans for extensive improvement of the church property will not be completed until the electric lights are installed, delayed by the uncertainty of getting the current. 

Bridgewater Twp. – The warehouse and stable at Harrington’s Mills burned on the 19th of Sept.  An alarm was telephone to the Tarbell House and Chemical No. 2 and Hook & Ladder responded.  Hose carts were useless because the nearest hydrant was 1000 ft. away.  Nevertheless a bucket brigade was formed and with buckets of water and wet sacks men and boys prevented the fire catching the main mill, water being carried in milk cans from the Borden milk station across the road. In the warehouse was a large stock of feed, fertilizer and farming machinery, which was rendered worthless. A Lackawanna freight car, standing on the siding in the direct path of the flames, was rolled out of harm’s way.  There is no clue as to the origin of the fire, but the general supposition is that a smoker in the stable might have carelessly caused the blaze.  A vagrant had been seen on the vicinity shortly before and suspicion rests also on him.

Montrose – Miss Helen Burns leaves tomorrow for Philadelphia, where she will enter the College of Pharmacy.  Miss Burns is the third in the family to follow this profession.  Her grandfather [a Civil War Veteran] founded the A. B. Burns’ drug store over 50 years ago.  His son, George C. Burns, is the present proprietor.  Miss Burns, the latter’s daughter, now takes up the study of the profession.  Probably this circumstance cannot be duplicated in the state. [Helen closed the drug store in 1980 and died in 1983 at age 87. During an interview, in 1980, she told of the Civil War veterans who came to visit her grandfather at the store.  He allowed them to purchase a glass of whiskey from the store stock, which was sold by the pint or quart.  Apparently this was a daily routine for many years and did not end until the death of A. B. Burns in 1906.  George, his son, immediately put a stop to the practice, which was not a popular decision with these old men.  A. B. Burns was a member of the 134th PA Volunteers during the war and became good friends with Col. Matthew Quay, who later became a state senator.  Through this friendship Mr. Burns was appointed to the first State Board of Pharmacy.  The license number for his store was #5.]

200 Years Ago from the Centinel, Montrose, Pa., Sept. 22, 1816.  

MARRIED - In the township of Bridgewater, on the 10th of Sept. last, by the Rev. Davis Dimock, Mr. Joshua Smith to Miss Peggy Young, both of Bridgewater.

MARRIED - On the 16th by the Rev. D. Dimock, Mr. Josiah Lord, of Waterford [Brooklyn Twp.], to Miss Sally Hall, of Bridgewater.

MARRIED - On the 19th, by the Rev. D. Dimock, Mr. Elias Palmer, of Bridgewater to widow Abagail Tupper, of Middletown.

MARRIED - On the 24th, Samuel Thatcher, of Middletown, to Eunice Tupper, of Rush.

MARRIED - On the 16th inst., Robert Day to Lucy Bush, both of Bridgewater.

CLOTH DRESSING.  The subscriber informs his friends and the public generally, that he will Full, Dye & Dress Cloth, at his stand on the Wyalusing Creek in Rush township, in the best manner and on the shortest notice, during the present season.  JOHN ROSS.

When a person is convicted of a criminal offense, there are often collateral consequences that go beyond any incarceration, fines or other punishment imposed by the sentencing court.   One such collateral consequence involves the right to possess firearms.  Under Pennsylvania law, the Commonwealth has designated a variety of serious offenses that disqualify any person convicted of those offenses from possessing a firearm.  The Pennsylvania statute provides some level of certainty as to the specific offenses that result in a prohibition against the possession of firearms.  The Pennsylvania statute also provides an offender with a means to petition a court to restore his or her right to possess a firearm.

Aside from the state prohibitions, however, the federal government has enacted a statute relative to firearm ownership that prohibits any person convicted of a “crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” from possessing a firearm.  To add some confusion, the federal statute then excludes any state conviction “classified by the laws of the State as a misdemeanor and punishable by a term of imprisonment of two years or less.”  Under Pennsylvania law, a misdemeanor of the third degree has a maximum punishment of up to 1 year in jail, while a misdemeanor of second degree has a maximum period of incarceration of 2 years.  Thus, these two misdemeanors are exempt from application of the federal law.

A misdemeanor of the first degree, however, is punishable by up to 5 years of incarceration.  The federal exemption does not seemingly apply to a Pennsylvania conviction for a misdemeanor of the first degree.  What types of crimes are within the purview of a misdemeanor of the first degree?  The most common one would be a second or subsequent DUI offense.  It could also include a theft offense where the value of the item stolen exceeded $200.  Under federal law, if you are convicted in Pennsylvania of a misdemeanor of the first degree, federal law prohibits you from possessing a firearm.

Daniel Binderup recently challenged the constitutionally of this federal prohibition.  In 1996, Binderup was convicted of corruption of a minor (a misdemeanor of the first degree) for a consensual sexual relationship that he had with a 17-year old co-worker.  Binderup was 41 years of age at the time.  He received 3 years of probation and paid a fine of $300.  Aside from that conviction, he committed no other criminal acts in his life.  This state misdemeanor conviction, however, disqualified him from possessing a firearm under federal law and Binderup sought a judicial determination that such an application of the federal law to his state conviction was unconstitutional.

On September 7, 2016, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the federal law – as applied to Binderup – was unconstitutional.  The Third Circuit noted that the right to bear arms guaranteed under the Second Amendment can be lost upon conviction of a serious and violent offense, which the common law typically considered felony offenses.  The Court noted that Pennsylvania had determined that Binderup’s offense was not so serious as to be labeled a felony offense – it was a misdemeanor under Pennsylvania law.  The Third Circuit indicated that “Congress may not overlook so generally the misdemeanor label, which in the Second Amendment context, is so important.”

The Court also found that Binderup’s conviction did not involve violent criminal conduct.  The lack of severity of Binderup’s conviction was further underscored by the probationary sentence: “With not a single day of jail time, the punishment here reflects the sentencing judge’s assessment of how minor the violation was.”  The Court also noted that there was no clear consensus among the different states as to how serious of a crime a consensual sexual relationship between a 41 year old and a 17 year is.  Because Binderup was able to demonstrate that his crime was not one that was historically considered serious or violent, and that his individual circumstances were such that there was no evidence that he was a violent offender, the Court determined that the federal law as it applied to Binderup was unconstitutional.  The nature of the offense itself was simply too minor to justify the loss of a constitutionally protected fundamental right.

The entire Third Circuit heard this case – and the final decision itself was an 8-7 vote.  The dissenting judges argued that Congress had the authority to restrict firearm possession for persons convicted of crimes that Congress determined are serious offenses.  Based upon media reports, it is expected that the Government will appeal this decision though there is no guarantee that the United States Supreme Court will hear the appeal.  For those interested in history or Second Amendment rights, the decision is a very interesting read and it can be found at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals website.  Just click on the opinion section and simply enter “Binderup” as a search term to locate the entire opinion.

Is it safe to sleep with your dog?

Roy came into the pharmacy and said to the pharmacist “I found a big tick on the back of my leg. I have not been out in the woods or fields. I only mowed the lawn.” The pharmacist remembered that Roy has this beautiful collie mix that he rescued the year before. “Did Roxie run out into the fields and woods?” the pharmacist asked. “She always does. That’s why I put tick protection on her,” Roy replied.

A tick is a type of parasite that lives by eating the blood of mammals, birds, and sometimes reptiles and amphibians. While insects have 6 legs, ticks, like spiders, have 8 legs. Certain ticks are vectors of a number of diseases, notably Lyme disease, a potentially severe infectious disease, which affects both humans and other animals.

Contrary to a very popular myth, ticks do not fall or jump out of trees onto a host. However, ticks can climb, and they tend to attach themselves to shrubs and blades of tall grass. When a host walks by and brushes against the plant where the tick is waiting to feed, the tick climbs onto the host. Once on a new victim, the tick eventually finds a location to attach and feed.

Can a tick climb from a dog to a human? Conceivably, yes. Roy did admit that Roxie jumps on the bed at night. And a tick, before it has found a suitable place to feed, may be repelled by the tick medicine and lumbers under the sheets to you. Lyme disease is just one of the dangerous diseases that ticks can transmit. Although people cannot catch these diseases from dogs directly, infected ticks can bite people and transmit them. If your dog is exposed to these dangers, you and your family may also be at risk for exposure. For some diseases, like Lyme disease, a tick must be attached for several hours to transmit the infection to a host. This means that if you check your dog (and yourself) daily, you have a chance of finding and removing any ticks before they can transmit Lyme disease.

How do you remove a tick? Let’s start with wrong ways to do it. Burning it with a cigarette will fry the little beast but its mouth parts will remain embedded in the skin. The same goes for other home remedies that have the same result. Things that have been used include gasoline, vodka, olive oil, motor oil, rubbing alcohol, nail polish remover, hair spray, Tabasco sauce, Raid bug killer, and men’s cologne.

But the biggest danger of killing the tick is that in its death throes, the creature can inject a disease into whomever it is being removed from. The best technique in removing a tick is to softly grab it between the thumb and index finger as close to the skin as possible, and then apply steady, gentle, pulling on the tick until it lets go. Using rubber gloves while performing this procedure gives you an extra level of safety. With very few exceptions, most of the time the tick will let go. Once removed, hold it up to a good light and see if its stubby little legs are wiggling or that its mouthparts are intact. If you’re squeamish about touching the tick, you can use tweezers or a tic tool (Ask your pharmacist.). Since Roy did not use this technique, the pharmacist referred him to his doctor in case he needed an antibiotic.

Ron Gasbarro, PharmD is a registered pharmacist, medical writer, and principal at Rx-Press.com. Write him with any ideas or comments at ron@rx-press.com.