Dr. Isham G. Bailey House

The house is located at 1577 Early Grove Road in Lamar, a small town in Marshall County, Mississippi.[2][3] It is surrounded by 844 acres of land on the property, including some acres in Fayette County, Tennessee, an adjacent county.[3]

The land upon which the house was built originally belonged to the Chickasaw Nation.[3] In the 1830s, it was acquired by two land speculators, Thomas Mull and Samuel Reeves.[3]

By the early 1840s, the two speculators sold it to Dr Isham G. Bailey (1813-1885), a "prominent doctor and planter" from Lincoln County, Tennessee.[3] The house was built for Bailey from 1842 to 1855.[3] However, some sources suggest the speculators may have sold the land to a first owner in the 1840s, who built the house in 1842 and sold it to Bailey in the 1850s.[3] Either way, the house was designed as a hip roofed cottage in the Greek Revival and Italianate architectural styles.[3]

Bailey lived in the house with his wife, Susan Bird Bailey (1822-1864), their two sons, Neal T. Bailey and Cullen R. Bailey, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Nancy.[3] Bailey also owned African slaves, who are buried in Bailey Cemetery.[3] After the American Civil War, Bailey's slaves became sharecroppers on the property.[4]

When Bailey died in 1885, the house was inherited by his brother-in-law William M. Parr, husband of Bailey's sister Louisa (1832-1892).[3] Later, it was inherited by their daughter, Jennie Parr, and their granddaughter, Mrs Boyd Burnette.[3] The house was used as a summer retreat owned by the Bailey family until 1985.[3]

The house was acquired by James K. Dobbs, III in 1985.[3] Dobbs remodelled the house.[3]

The house has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since August 30, 2001.[2]