Humphreys had established a permanent winter residence, "Lucknow", in Claiborne County. He did not bring his family to his Itta Bena plantation until slaves had completed construction of a substantial home in 1857, which he christened as "Itta Bena", the Choctaw words for "camp in the woods". It was built from lumber from the land of the plantation, logs which were plastered and painted. The earliest substantial home built in the frontier Yazoo country, it was the center of the plantation’s many hundred acres. The main portion of the original Humphreys home was still used as a residence in 1954 (thought to be the home of Dr. B. B. Harper on Lakeshore Street). Following the Civil War, Humphreys was elected as governor of Mississippi.