Winchester Journal Herald.
October 9, 1951
Jewell Webb, about 45, whose address is said to be Chicago, is in the Randolph County hospital in Winchester, victim of a negro attack sometime Monday night or early Tuesday morning.
Hospital attaches say his head is bashed in from the severe beating and stomping he received during a drunken brawl following payday to about 75 negro Pennsylvania Railroad section hands at Ridgeville.
In jail is his alleged attacker, one Doc Menzie of Mississipi with charges against him awaiting the recovery of Webb.
There usually is plenty of excitement in northeast Randolph and southwest Jay counties when the section gang gets paid of, this pay day was no exception.
Webb is a white cook, working in the commissary at the tent grounds where the workers live. He is not a railroad employee.
Sheriff Cliff Hines received his call at 8 a.m. Tuesday and before long eight other officers were on hand to help quell the ongoing brawl. They included Deputy Perry Jennings, State Police Patrolmen Bob Davis and Merrill Wann of Winchester, John Markle of Marion and Earl Warnock of Portland, plus Marshall Ermin Cox and his deputy, Glen Ritchey, of Ridgeville, plus Sheriff Fred Pensinger of Portland.
The trouble actually started Monday night when Sheriff Hines picked up a drunken negro five miles northeast of Winchester near the Bob Ward farm. He said he had been robbed, but bore no traces of it. He was jailed.
Up in Jay county one of the drunks got into bed with a white man in his home near the Lee Ware auction barns on U.S. 27.
The party was going good at Ridgeville.
There were plenty of fist fights, and Webb got slugged and tromped on, his face and head "was a mess," witnesses said.
Going to Ridgeville, Sheriff Hines herded the staggering crew hands into a field and ordered the gang boss to sort out the trouble makers.
Seventeen were picked out, loaded into a truck and taken to the Winchester jail where the Monday night drunk was still locked up and the whole caboodle was then taken to Richmond for train transportation back to Chicago.
Richmond police were called to have an extra "guard" on hand as the bunch was getting pretty unruly again.
The crew is stationed at the north edge of Ridgeville laying new ties on the east and west Pennsylvania line.
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