Wilson Daily Times, 26 July 1912.

Benjamin J. Stott and Handy Hodge were sharecroppers, or perhaps tenant farmers, on D.J. Scott’s farm in southern Wilson County. As they walked to work on a Saturday morning, Hodge confronted Stott about 25 cents Stott owed Hodge’s son, and Stott shot Hodge through the thigh with a .38.

After Hodge’s wound was treated, he and Stott decided to get in front of the law and hustled to a Wilson justice of the peace with a watered-down version of events. They were given moderate fines and released. However, Crossroads law enforcement got wind of the fracas, arrested Stott, and charged him with shooting Hodge and carrying a concealed weapon. He was “tried” by a justice of the peace (apparently, something akin to a probable cause hearing) and released under a hefty $200 bond to appear in county Superior Court. 

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• B.J. Stott — In the 1900 census of Crossroads township, Wilson County: farmer Benjamin Stott, 49, and wife Lucinda, 39. 
• Handy Hodge — in the 1900 census of Crossroads township, Wilson County: next door to the Stotts, farmer Handy Hodge, 52; wife Roxie, 50; children David, 16, and Handy, 13; and widowed aunt Jennie Newsom, 80.