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History
in a Pecan Shell
The community was named - not after a grandmother's anatomical feature -
but a "neck" of land that jutted into the South Sulphur River. Granny was
Mary "Granny" Sinclair, matriarch of a settler family that raised goats on this
neck of land. Hence Granny's Neck.
Granny's Neck was a crossing on the
once important Bonham-Jefferson
road. Brigidier DeSpain, and his wife, Narcissa, arrived in 1846 to claim land
that had been awarded to a relative who had been killed at Goliad.
Since their grant included both sides of the river, they built a bridge and made
a living charging people to cross.
A flood destroyed the bridge in the
1870s and the crossing was then named after the state appointed tollkeeper - G.
W. Harper. After enough tolls were collected to pay off the bridge, the tollkeeper
was relieved of duties and the bordering counties maintained the bridge. As the
population dwindled, the road was closed.
Granny's Neck once had a school,
but was later moved to nearby Pecan Grove. |
by
Bob Bowman ("All Things Historical" Column)
Granny's Neck is
one of the oddest names ever given to a piece of East Texas real estate. Also
known as Old Granny's Neck and Harper's Crossing, the small community
was six miles southeast of Cooper, where the Old
Bonham-Jefferson Road crossed the Suphur River in Delta County....In 1970, the
Delta County Historical Commission placed a Texas historical marker at the intersection
of State Highways 154 and 19 to mark the site of Granny's Neck... more |
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