In October of 1878 W.T. Willis, also known as Charlie Ford, a noted horse thief and murderer , was killed in a shootout with the Sheriff of Palo Pinto at his hideout just north of the Erath County line.

Waco Examiner

In 1891, Taylor Long was driving his ox team home from Stephenville when a nearby stampede frightened his oxen. He knew he was in trouble when his “meek and mild-eyed oxen began to turn the hair on their backs the wrong way.” The ox team ran away, smashed up the wagon bed, and dumped everything in the road. Stepenville Empire

In 1865, a man named Dalton, who lived a little south of Stephenville on the Bosque River, was brought to town and charged with killing his wife. A large crowd gathered around the square. Since there was no judge, town officials drew a line in the ground on the square and after some discussion of the case, the people were asked to step to the guilty or the innocent side of the line. Most of the crowd stepped to the guilty side and Dalton was hanged from a post oak tree on the Stephenville Square.

M.L. Auten, A History of Erath County. Unpublished master’s thesis, Hardin-Simmons University, August, 1951, in Texas Tech Southwestern Collection.

October 14, 1862 is the birthday of Jim Miller, known as “The Deacon” a fervent prayer-meeting type who killed for hire. The “Deacon” dressed in a black scissor-tailed coat and a bullet-proof vest. Reputed to have killed 51 people, including Sheriff Pat Garrett and Stephenville attorney and land developer, James Jarrott. Jarrott had arranged for 25 mostly Erath County families to settle land west of Lubbock. Large ranchers had been trying to keep farmers and small ranchers out of the area. A rancher hired professional gunman, the “Deacon” to hide behind a water tank and ambush Jarrott as he approached. A few settlers returned to Erath County, but most stayed on their land. The “Deacon” took a break from his line of work to sell real estate out of Fort Worth that was located in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. and Mrs. M. G. Abernathy, Oral History Interview, June 7, 1956, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas; and Joseph Carroll McConnell, The West Texas Frontier: Or, A Descriptive History of Early Times in Western Texas, Jacksboro: Gazette Print, 1933.

H.S. Armstrong of Duffau bought his farm on credit in 1886 for $1800, he paid off the farm in October of 1891. “He now has 100 acres in cultivation. This season he made 15 bales of cotton, 400 bushels of corn, 300 bushels of oats, put up 1500 pounds of pork, and has $100 in the bank.” Stephenville Empire

In 1855, after thirty families followed the Bosque River from Waco to the new townsite of Stephenville, there was a surplus of oxen that had pulled those wagons. In October, J.G. Yarbrough bought a “hundred yoke of oxen” from John and William Stephen, to take to another frontier town, Kimbell Bend, in Bosque county. To keep the oxen together, he cut down a large post oak tree from the northeast corner of the square and the oxen dragged it to Bosque County. The drag marks became the trail to Glen Rose and later was paved as the Glen Rose highway. Stephenville Tribune

In 1909 “Erath County has 33 felons in the penitentiary, and also keeps seven or eight young men on the county chain gang, and has her quota of moral perverts in the reformatory, and she is also well represented in the insane asylums, and so far this year there have been nine murders.

Stephenville Tribune

In October of 1885 The Wallace and Co. Circus came to Stephenville with such attractions as “a veritable revivable of classic Roman sports, breath abating feats in mid-air, beautiful bevies of female riders, wild beasts in vivid groups.” The excitement was too much for many young men and by the end of the performance, 19 had been arrested for fighting. Stephenville Empire

On October 16th “pistol shots and the cry of fire brought the citizens from their supper tables . . . the old tinder box [the main Tarleton building] was on fire. By the time hose companies got their connections made . . . the building was so enveloped in flames that no power could have saved it. With the exception of the library, some furniture, and a quantity of text books, the main building was a total loss.”

Erath Appeal

Well, there were very few old-time craft set-ups. Actually just me at the blacksmith shop, but there was a pretty good crowd and the people were interested and interesting. The museum board will have to root out craft talent for next year, the old folks that have presented at the fair have aged out or lost interest, but I know there are talented younger people out there who can demonstrate rope-making, soap-making, farrier, roping skills, etc. Actually we did get a semi-promise from Ginny Garrard to bring her spinning wheel up from Austin for next October’s By-Gone Days. The Master Gardeners with their plant sale were the big success – they had nice crowds and many people were pleased with their purchases.

I’ll be at the blacksmith shop hammering out plan hangers for those with patience.

In October of 1872 Erath County vigilantes hanged so many people, some at McDow Hole near Alexander, that Austin placed the area under marshal law for the winter. People were afraid of assassination if they testified against the vigilantes, so lawyer T.I. Nugent was able to get the charges dropped. Lena Lewis, “Erath County: A Compilation,” Unpublished manuscript in the Tarleton library, Stephenville, Texas, 1938.