Home → Columnists ( July 16, 2025 )
Montrose – Mrs. E.P. Brown, of Louden Hill Farm, was seriously injured Friday afternoon while at the Walter L. Main circus. A heavy iron ring fell from the top of the tent, striking her on the head, and causing a concussion of the brain. Dr F.S. Birchard was near her at the time of the accident and after restoring her to consciousness treated her at his home on Church Street. Mrs. Brown was not able to return to her home until late Sunday afternoon. Her present condition is satisfactory, although she is still suffering intense pain of the head and neck. The ring which struck her weighed about ten pounds, and it was fortunate that she was not more seriously injured, if not killed, by the force of the impact. The circus management left a drawing account of $1,250 for surgical and medical treatment. Mrs. Brown is the wife of Susquehanna County's representative in the State Legislature. She is being cared for by a trained nurse, Miss Julia Calby. ALSO "Barney" Titman, Postmaster A.L. Titman's prize bulldog, came near being a tourist on Friday. Some of the men in the Main circus took a fancy to him and had the popular canine on board a car, ready for traveling, when members of the family rescued him.
Susquehanna – Montrose and Susquehanna have always been closely linked, socially, and when the Erie Hose Co., of Susquehanna, invited the United Fire Co., of Montrose, to march in its parade, during Old Home Week, there was expressed, at once, the wish by many to journey to the "City of Stairs" to participate in the event. One hundred and twenty members of the United Fire Co. were present in the line of march, along with Forest City and Windsor, NY.
Clifford – The widening process on the State highway from Clifford to Forest City, is making a very great improvement to the stretch of highway. C.W. Lewis, of South Gibson, is superintending the work, and is making a mighty good job of it.
Upper Lake – Gerald Tingley and George LaBarre have purchased new Cleveland cars. ALSO There will be an ice cream social at Sweet's school house, July 16, for the benefit of the church.
Thompson – During the electric storm last week, a maple tree in J.D. Miller's front yard, which measured about 8 ft. in circumference, was torn up by the roots so completely that not a trace of it was left. It fell over the telephone and electric wires, putting them out of commission and crashed onto the roof of the front porch with such force as to demolish it.
Lenox Twp. – Ferris Pratt, a prominent resident of this township, died at his home in Pratt Hollow, June 8th. He was 83 years of age. Death was due to erysipelas. He was a member of Lenox Grange and well known in the vicinity. The funeral was held from his late home and burial was in the family plot in Tower Cemetery.
Springville – The Baptist people have secured land on the Ely and Riley property and will erect a new church at once. ALSO The marriage of Miss Fannie Avery, to William Gibson, took place at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church on Sunday, July 12, 1925, preceding the morning service.
Hallstead – The ferry across the river at Hallstead and Great Bend was opened for use this week. Owing to the failure of a reversible drum to arrive, the opening of the ferry was delayed. The ferry has two floats designed after those in use on the Monongahela River, and built by experts on the river bank at Hallstead. They will have a capacity of handling 100 cars per hour.
Forest City – Comerford Amusement Co., of Scranton, which owns all the theaters and moving picture houses in Wilkes-Barre, and controls most of the amusement houses of NE PA, opened its new theatre, at this place, on July 15th. It is the 108th theatre in the Comerford circuit. ALSO Edmund Gerchman, age 12, son of Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Gerchman, died from injuries he received on July 4. He was shot in the left hand with a toy gun. He was recovering when lock-jaw took place.
Franklin Forks – Mr. and Mrs. DePue are rejoicing over the arrival of a little son, born Tuesday, July 7, Samuel.
Little Meadows – Leroy A. Barnum, of this place, and Gladys B. Baldwin, of Neath, secured a license to marry.
Bible Conference Is Now In Session – Dr. A.B. Gabelein of New York, editor of "Our Hope," conducts this conference. He is one of the most learned students of prophecy in the country and an intensely interesting and instructive speaker.
Movement to Save "Old Ironsides" – Descendants of all the officers and seamen who served on the famous fighting frigate "Old Ironsides," now rotting at her moorings in the Boston Bay Yards, are going to raise $12,000 for a new main mast and its rigging, as their part of the $500,000 fund to restore the historic ship. Commander Arthur Bainbridge Heff, USN, retired, who is the nearest male descendant of Commodore Wm. Bainbridge, who commanded the Constitution when she destroyed the British frigate, Java, off the coast of South America, in 1812, is sponsor of the movement and has organized a committee to get in touch with all the descendants of the crews and officers who served on this ship from 1797 to 1882, when "Old Ironsides" was put out of commission. [USS Constitution, or "Old Ironsides," is the oldest commissioned Naval warship still afloat. The cost was $302,718 and it was one of six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794, and the third constructed at Edmund Hartt's shipyard at the north end of Boston. Ian W. Toll's book, Six Frigates: The Epic History the Founding of the US Navy," is available at most public libraries.]
Partial List of Letters Remaining in the Post-Office at Montrose: William Arms, Joseph Beebe, Leonard Baldwin, Betsey M. Benjamin, Jonah Brewster, Nathaniel Curtis, Charles Catlin, Ugenior Cushman, Hannah Dennis, Joseph Fisk, Robert Griffis, John J. Hyde, Bela Jones, William M'Micken, Orange Mott, Jacob Perkins, Christopher Shelp, SethTaylor, Ebenezer Whipple.
We are happy to learn, that Gen. LaFayette has yielded to the pressing invitation of government to return to France in the new frigate Brandywine, recently launched at the city of Washington; and, that he will remain until after the 11th of September, in compliance with the wish of government, to be present at the anniversary of the battle of Brandywine, where he first shed blood in fighting for independence of these United States. A departure from his adopted, for his native country, under these circumstances, will give a finish to his glorious career, worthy of the country, and honorable to the nation's guest.
During the fall of 2021, the York City Police were working with the US Marshal Fugitive Task Force to serve a warrant on Dominique Hightower. A potential residence was identified and observed over the course of several days which confirmed that Hightower was at the residence. On November 3, 2021, law enforcement knocked on the door of the residence to arrest Hightower. As they were knocking on the door, an officer observed blinds in a second-floor window move.
Hightower did come to the front door, and, after a brief struggle, he was arrested outside of the residence. Because there was concern about the movement seen in the second-floor window, and concern about officer safety, the police then conducted a protective sweep of the residence to verify that there were no persons inside seeking to do harm to the police officers. One of the police officers observed a dresser in the upstairs bedroom that had small bits of marijuana on the top of it. As a result of this observation of drug activity, the police obtained a search warrant for the residence. Upon searching the house, the police seized a variety of drugs, US currency and firearms. Hightower was then charged with felony drug and firearm offenses.
Hightower sought to suppress the evidence seized from the house contending that it had been obtained unlawfully. Hightower argued that the police had illegally entered the house to do an unnecessary protective sweep, i.e., he had already surrendered outside the residence and was in custody when the police entered the residence. The trial court concluded that the protective sweep was proper because of the suspicious movements of the blinds in the second-floor window when the police officers knocked and announced their presence. The trial court, however, concluded that the scope of the protective sweep had been exceeded by the law enforcement officer's decision to inspect the dresser more closely to identify the marijuana residue. Because the officer should not have been able to observe the marijuana on the top of the dresser while doing a quick protective sweep, and that information was used to obtain the search warrant, the trial judge concluded that the search warrant was not valid and suppressed the evidence. The Commonwealth filed an appeal.
The Superior Court concluded that the protective sweep was permissible as there were articulable facts on the record about a potential third party in an upstairs location who could have caused harm to the police officers. i.e., the suspicious movement of the second-floor blinds alerted the police officers to the potential presence of a threat. The Superior Court explained, however, that a protective sweep is limited in its scope to "a quick, cursory inspection for harmful items." When considering this standard, the Superior Court concluded that "we agree with the trial court that a reasonably prudent police officer conducting a protective sweep for persons and harmful items that could pose a threat to officer safety, which included the swift and cursory search of the top of the dresser, would not have led a reasonable officer to see such tiny, de minimis specks of contraband. . . . On this record, [the police officer] did not identify any incriminating characteristics of the de minimis specks . . . on the top of the dresser, such as an odor or color, that would have led him to believe that the tiny specks were loose marijuana. . . . Accordingly, the trial court properly concluded that the Commonwealth failed to prove that the criminality of the items observed on the top of the dresser was immediately apparent [to be contraband]."
This case provides a good example of the limitation placed on the protective sweep doctrine. The search itself must be quick and cursory and aimed at finding a threatening person or weapons. The Superior Court agreed with the trial court that a law enforcement officer conducting such a quick and cursory search could not have reasonably identified tiny amounts of marijuana residue on a dresser in a bedroom without the law enforcement office spending additional (and not permitted) time to inspect the top of the dresser with more focused attention. The top of the dresser was not a threat to the police officer – so the protective sweep of that bedroom needed to cease upon no threat being identified. Think of it this way – the police were justified in entering and clearing the house to assure that there was no one there who could harm them, but the police were not authorized to closely inspect the furniture inside the residence that had no ability to potentially harm them. Because the police engaged in too close of an inspection of the dirty dresser that clearly had no weapons, the Superior Court concluded that the law enforcement officer had exceeded the scope of the permitted protective search and affirmed the trial court's suppression of the evidence.
Good day dear hearts, I love you. Wow! What a week this has been. On Thursday morning July 3rd I emailed the week's column to the Transcript and a few hours later all hell broke loose. I think all of us can say we never experienced anything like we did late Thursday afternoon July 3rd. While I live in North Jackson, a little part of it, which included me, lost power until Sunday, July 6th in the afternoon. While there was much destruction God spared the lives of our people and we saw the resiliency of our people, the community mind of our people to help other people. The real strength and love of Susquehanna's people came through the next few days after the tornado hit. Businesses such as Schnieder's Market, Scoops, Susquehanna Blossoms, our own Church provided over 450 meals to our residents and I'm sure there were many more who pitched in. It's not over yet as there still is much to be done. I believe God is going to turn this devastation into a new attitude, that we have God's mercy and a sense of unity, togetherness among our people.
There are people in this town who pray daily for the benefit, blessings and protection of our town and its people. God does not purposely send a tornado upon us, but He allows things such as this for reasons we do not understand. Reasons God will answer someday.
Prayer is pretty serious. Prayer is a solemn request for help or expression of thanks expressed to God or to worship. God requires all of this from everyone. For the Christian, prayer opens the door for us to have an intimate relationship and while He doesn't need our prayers to do His will, God wants us to pray for His intervention and guidance, which God incorporates into His will. Let me make this clear, God already knows the end result but He wants our involvement.
Some of us at times have grown weary of praying for someone or a particular situation. You may have heard the saying, "Be careful of what you pray for." We don't see the future, but God does! He knows the request we are making will result in tragedy for us, so He doesn't grant it. At a later time, we may say, "I'm glad God didn't answer that prayer." I can't emphasize the importance of the intimacy of your personal relationship with God. It should be as you turn to a loved one and say, "What are we going to do now?" You should be able to turn to God first, before the loved one.
I can give you many references from the Bible on how prayer works, but today I'm going to illustrate an example that you can connect with. The church I pastor is the one next to the Dollar General and for many years it was a Methodist Church. In fact, I was pastor of the church the last 8 years it was Methodist. Very few were attending our church and our finances were almost zero. During this time the Methodist Denomination made changes that weren't biblical. We did not want any part of it so we decided we would close the church. One man in our church asked us to pray for one more month and then close the doors. We did just that and then one day I got a call from a stock broker I never knew and she went on to tell me her client left the church a substantial amount of money. He was not someone who was part of our church but as a young boy he visited his grandparents for the summer and he had fond memories of our church from back then. In order to be free from the Methodists we had to pay money. I called it a ransom. God provided us with the payment for the ransom and then left us enough to rebuild our church, which is what we have done. The power of prayer is awesome!
Through prayer we invite God to accomplish His work in us. While we can't alter any measure of God's plan or make God change His mind, we can invite Him to alter us. To transform us. In prayer, we submit to God's Will, repent of sin and ask to shape us into the image of Jesus. God is there for us anytime, day or night, joyful or brokenhearted, God will meet you and hear your prayer. God Bless.
Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for being with us in the circumstances and changes in our lives. While we don't have the control to change, let us surrender to you and let your peace wash over us. Father, we ask your blessing upon our little town. Send your Spirit and touch the broken-hearted, give peace to the sick, bless the poor.
Contact me anytime. Pastor Vince Chiaramonte, 570-853-3988, Susquehanna Christian Community Church, 1361 Main Street, clearmountain2158@gmail.