On March 10, 1836, the Vicksburg Whig reported that William Bodley was selling his house and lot on Main Street and that it was a “very commodious” brick house and that possession would be given when his new house on Locust Street (805) was completed. 

Bodley was a lawyer in partnership with John Templeton. He was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1806 and entered the University of Transylvania at the age of 13. He graduated as salutatorian of a large class in 1821. He was the youngest person in the class and the youngest to have graduated from the university.  He then completed post-graduate courses at the same university, earning a law degree. A few years later, he and a classmate moved to Natchez. He became friends with Sgt. Prentiss and Judge Sharkey and was encouraged to move to Vicksburg. He was elected circuit court judge in Warren County, but resigned after a year in order to resume his law practice. He married Ellen Pearce in 1834 and they had 10 children, eight who lived to adulthood. In about 1849, the Bodleys moved to Louisville, Kentucky, leaving Vicksburg to escape “the ravages of yellow fever.” He continued in his law practice, working until his death on April 9, 1877.

The Bodley house and two lots on Locust were sold in 1840 for $12,000. They had purchased another house of lesser value because of financial difficulties which came from an ill-fated run for the U. S. Senate. When the family moved to Kentucky, this house was listed for sale for $3,000-$5,000. Bodley’s obituary in the Louisville Courier-Journal stated that Bodley worked for years to repay his debts and that “he won the crowning victory of his life by paying off the last dollar of his huge debt with interest. He had given up all else to save his honor, and he saved it.”

Bodley and his brother Hugh were involved in the Mississippi Temperance Society, as well as efforts to expel gamblers from Vicksburg. Hugh was killed in 1835 during an attempt to remove gamblers from the city after they had been given 24 hours to leave. A physician, Hugh was only 25 years old when he was killed. The city erected a monument in his memory, which is now located on the triangle formed by Farmer, Openwood and First East streets.

The Bodley House had a number of occupants following the Bodley family, including its use as “Bryson House,” a boarding house for transient and family day boarders by Mrs. H. T. Strickland in the 1890s. In 1921, it was bought by W. McCulloch and Juanita Grant Childs and it remained in this family until the death of Loomis, a daughter of the couple. The house, named Plain Gables by the Childs, is one of the earliest extant in Vicksburg and continues to grace Locust Street today.  

– Nancy Bell, Vicksburg Foundation for Historic Preservation.