Erath resident T. Ed Northcutt took his own life in 1886. His brother, Luke went to Church of Christ preacher William A. Jones for counseling, but instead of offering words of comfort, Jones declared that the brother had gone to Hell, it was Jone’s notion that suicide was an unpardonable sin. A few days later, the preacher was driving cattle by Northcutt’s house at Cow Creek, west of Dublin, when Northcutt walked outside and threw a rock at Jones. Preacher Jones responded by killing Northcutt with his shotgun. Later that morning Jones was arrested in Stephenville and a grand jury found the preacher’s shooting was with “felonious intent.” I don’t know what happened after that.

This story is among those found in Erath historian James Pylant’s, Sins of the Pioneers: Crimes and Scandals in a Small Town, Stephenville: Jacobus Books, 2019.