in October of 1872 a vigilante group lynched a tree-full near Stephenville and rode off without noticing that one of the victims, overweight Jim Latham, had bent his limb low enough to put his feet on the ground. Latham, the only survivor of the purge, (a different source said his son came out of the brush and cut him down) was able to escape to Austin (another source said a couple that helped him were later murdered) and reported the lawlessness to authorities. Stephenville was placed under martial law for the winter while state police tried to convict the well-known vigilantes. Nobody would testify for fear of “feeding the wolves,” a reference to the shallow graves associated with vigilante death squads.

Lena Lewis, Erath County: A Compilation, Stephenville, 1938. [manuscript in TSU Rare Book Room].