JOHN BODELL, who was recirded in Camden Fire Department records as John Boodle, was a teamster who was living at 522 Columbia Avenue in Camden when he was appointed to the Camden Fire Department on March 16, 1873 to serve as Driver with either the Hook and Ladder Company or  Engine Company 2. He was dismissed from service when drivers William T.G. Young, Jacob Kellum, and George Leibecke were reappointed on April 8, 1873. 

Little is known of John Bodell. He may have been the "John Boodle" in the 1870 Census who was born in Ireland in 1852, and was in 1870 living in Millville, New Jersey where he worked as a laborer. It seems somewhat more likely that he was the same person as the John Boodle, aka John Bodell, born in Ireland around 1820, a farmer whose house burned down in Mantua Township, Gloucester County in April of 1869. John Bodell and his wife Mary were still in Mantua when the Census was taken in 1870, along with children Mary, John, then 19, Thomas, Jane, James, Sarah, Matthew, Jemima, William, Amelia, and Emma. Another son, Joseph, was born in 1874.

John Boodle soon moved to Camden, where he was living in 1873. He appears in the 1874 Camden City Directory as John Bodell and was as an an expressman, which for all intents and purposes was the same as a teamster. Also at the address were sons John Bodell, a laborerer, Thomas Bodell, an engineer, and James Bodell, who was "learning engineering." The family had moved from 518 Columbia Avenue to 522 Columbia Avenue.

John Boodle had left the city by 1878, probably for Philadelphia. The Census of 1880 shows John Bodell and his wife and younger children had moved there. Son Thomas Bodell remained in Camden and lived there well into the 1900s. John Bodell died of cattarhal pneumonia at Philadelphia Hospital on March 30, 1895. He was buried at Mt. Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia, however, it should be noted that Camden funeral director Martin O'Brien handled the funeral.