I love little details interwoven with political issues that give the sense of life imitating Mark Twain or William Faulkner.  Kevin O’Connor’s provided a great example in a Fall River Herald story about the brook that runs through the area that Twin River is considering for a casino in Tiverton.

For one thing, he found the explanation for the name “Sucker Brook” as being a misspelling or evolution of Succor Brook, but the political history is one of those gems that surfaces in areas that have been inhabited since before the time of digital technology, mass communication, and rapid transportation:

Sucker Brook, once called Succor Brook, runs north from Stafford Pond in Tiverton to the South Watuppa Pond in Fall River. No one quite knows who owns Stafford Pond. South Watuppa Pond is owned by the Watuppa Water Board, which is controlled by the city.

But while the ownership of Stafford Pond is in question — that question is wrapped up in land grants issued by the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony in the 1600s — the ownership of the water coming from the pond is not in question. That is Fall River’s water.

The whole article’s an interesting read.