PECAN POINT PLANTATION. Pecan Point Plantation, in Pecan Point settlement, Red River County, was the property of Robert Hamilton,^qv who bought the land from Jacob Black in 1835. After Hamilton's death in 1843, the property passed to his brother and nephews and was eventually acquired by Matthew Watson, probably in 1859. At that time the plantation comprised 1,500 acres, 640 of which were in cultivation. The plantation had an overseer's house, slave cabins, a frame gin house with gin and mill attached, and a new cotton press. It was worked by seventy-four slaves. Watson's son John was called the "Prince of Pecan Point" because of his lavish entertaining at the plantation after the Civil War.^qv The house was eventually destroyed by the shifting course of the river.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Randolph B. Campbell, An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1821-1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989). Clarksville Standard, January 1, 1859. Abigail Curlee, A Study of Texas Slave Plantations, 1822-1865 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1932). Rex W. Strickland, Anglo-American Activities in Northeastern Texas, 1803-1845 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1937).

Stephen G. Wilson