... Anna Clark, who married James Anderson Pearce, came into possession of "Trough Spring" and used it as a country house, her home in town being on the River front. When old Fort Nelson was razed and the property sold. Pearce bought the land and erected a brick dwelling with an iron veranda, at what is now the corner of Seventh and Water. This home, in which the Pearce children were born, was torn down when the property again changed hands, and the Burge home was built there.
James Pearce, who was a Virginian, a man of affairs and considerable means, presented the river frontage before his home, the two blocks of Water street and wharf, to the city, making a proviso in the deed which brought an interesting suit in 1880. In that year the C. & O. railroad attempted to obtain a right of way for a line along the river front and was bitterly opposed by merchants of the city who protested that the business on the wharf would be ruined by this arrangement. A number of indignation meetings were held, attended by business men of Louisville. Temple Bodley, a young lawyer in those days, a grandson of James Pearce, was approached by a committee of merchants to ask his mother, Mrs. William S. Bodley, to file a suit to prevent this use of her father's gift, for they had found the old deed which provided that if the city permitted any building, etc., to be erected, obstructing the view of the Ohio river from the donor's home, garden or vineyard, the property should revert to the heirs. Mrs. Bodley brought the suit and an injunction was granted. ...
