Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1891-09-25
Fatal Saturday Night Spree.
A BREADwINNER FOR FIVE PEOPLE LOSES
HIS LIFE.


HIS LIFE.
On Saturday night last, near the dividing
line between Augusta and Rock bridge, and
near Mt. Carmel church, James f. Lofts
white miner aged thirty, was killed in q
melee with several colored men. Coroner
S. A. D. Mckee of Greenville, held an inquest
on Sunday and examined large number OF
witnesses, both white and colored, who were
with one party OF the other on Saturday
night. Much of the evidence was contradic:
tory, but the following is probably as neal
the true story as can he gotten. A party oil
half dozen young white men were at the
village of Midway drinking Saturday night
and about IL O'Clock started to their homes
When in front of Mt. Carmel church they
met Sims Brown, colored, escorting his
sister-in-law, Lilly Johnson, and Susan
Robinson, home from festival of the col
ored Methodist church near there. Lofts
cation, seized the man and Lofts knock
ed him down and kicked him. One
OF both of them, also caught the women
and tore their dresses. Lofts then kicked
the man good distance down the road and
then told him to run, which he did. The
women in the meantime had escaped and
gotten to their homes. When Brown ran,
he ran back to the church festival and there
told other colored men how he had been treat
ed. Robert Stuart, Chas. johnson, Wal
lace Stuart, Henry johnson, Frank Scott
and Charles Scott volunteered to see him
home OF, what is more likely, to whip the
white men who had attacked him. The
white men were not hard to find. for when
Weeks and Lofts saw the negroes they
made at the whole party of them. There
was a fight with sticks followed by a gener-
al firing-some eight OIL nine shots. Lofts
was shot in the breast and started to go
around the corner Of u fence to escape. S.
G.. Myrtle, a young white man who had been
with the party when they left Midway, but
had not joined in any Of theirrowdyism, saw
him turn the corner Of the fence and called
went to him and found him lying dead.
Henry Weeks was badly beaten over the
head in the melee with a stick. The story
this far is fairly well agreed upon
by both white and colored witnesses, but
when it came to ''Who did the shooting
every man white and black testified that
nobody Of his party had a pistol.
The coroner's jury rendered verdict to
tha effnct that the ShOOtin0 of T offs was
done by Sims Brown OIL one of the six men
named above as volunteers to see him
home, and Coroner Mckee committed all
the accused to jail, where, having waived a
preliminary examination, they will await
the action of the Grand Jury, which meets
next Monday.
A groundless report got out after the
prisoners were committed, that mob in
tended to attack the Jail, and the prisoners
were sent to the Charlottesville Jail for
safety, and are there now.
A clergyman Of the vicinity sends the
INDICATOR the following comment on
the occurrence:
Here then is the result of bar-room which
the citizens of this community made an earn
est effort to close at the last license term of
the County Court-one man killed upon whom
mother, two sisters and three children de-
pended for a living another man, who has a
wife and two children, badly wounded; and
seven colOred men ordered to prison, two OF
trouble this disturbance will cause, and how
much public money Qiquor license taxes y
will be expended in the trial OF the parties,
remain to be seen.