David Purviance was an American preacher and legislator. He was also an early trustee (1819–1836) of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and often served as its president pro tempore.
Background
David was born on November 14, 1766 in Iredell County, North Carolina, United States, the son of John and Jane (Wasson) Purviance, and the second of their eleven children. John, a native of Pennsylvania, had moved to North Carolina soon after his marriage in 1764.
Education
David Purviance attended the neighborhood schools, was grounded in the doctrines of the Presbyterian Church at home, and studied the classics at the seminary of Reverend James Hall, pastor of the Fourth Creek (Statesville) Church. During the Revolution, in which his father served as an officer, his studies were more or less interrupted by demands upon him at home.
Career
In the years of Revolution Purviance taught and was employed in the town clerk's office at Salisbury, North Carolina.
After his marriage in 1789 his father established him on a farm on the south fork of the Yadkin River; later he moved to the vicinity of Nashville, where the Indians killed and scalped a younger brother; and about 1792 he settled at Cane Ridge, Bourbon County, clearing from the wilds land sufficient to yield a livelihood for his family.
Soon, both in religious and political affairs, he became one of the prominent persons of that section. In 1797 he was elected to the legislature by those opposed to the reëstablishment of the terminer court. A speech in reply to John Breckinridge, who sought to carry through a reëstablishment bill, won Purviance high regard and was instrumental in defeating the measure. During the several sessions he was in the legislature he was the leader of the farmer members, who would follow him blindly because of their faith in his honesty and independence.
Purviance was a ruling elder in the Cane Ridge Presbyterian Church and in 1801 was licensed by the presbytery as an exhorter. He had been profoundly stirred by the Great Revival and imbued with its New Light doctrines. When Barton W. Stone and others withdrew from the Kentucky Synod and formed the Springfield Presbytery, Purviance cast in his lot with them and was ordained to the ministry. Stone made him co-pastor with himself of the congregations at Cane Ridge and Concord.
He made preaching tours into North Carolina, Tennessee, and Ohio, and in 1807 removed to the Ohio frontier, whither a company of Cane Ridge families had migrated, settling at what is now New Paris, Preble County. Here he established a church, the first in that section, which grew rapidly and of which he remained in charge till toward the close of his life. The first school, also, in that neighborhood he taught in his own kitchen.
He entered politics in 1809, and served three terms in the state Senate (1810 - 16). He was once more elected to the legislature in 1826. As in Kentucky, he took an active part in legislation and was respected for his fearlessness and integrity. He was one of the trustees of Miami University located at Oxford.
He died in Preble County at the residence of a son.
Achievements
Politics
A friend of the negro, Purviance opposed the "black laws".
Views
David Purviance was in opposition to slavery and in advocacy of gradual emancipation.
Connections
David married in 1789 to Mary, daughter of John and Martha Ireland