PURVIANCE, JOHN, was born June 19, 1760. The place of his birth is not known, but he went from Pennsylvania to the vicinity of Concord, Cabarras county, North Carolina. He was a soldier in the colonial army that achieved American Independence, but whether he went from Pennsylvania or North Carolina is not known. John Purviance and Nancy Ferguson were married and had three sons and three daughters in North Carolina, namely--

DAVID SIMPSON, ALEXANDER C., JOHN G., ELIZABETH, MATILDA and MARGARET.

Mrs. Nancy Purviance died, and he married Elizabeth Lisenby. They had two sons and two daughter--

JAMES, SAMUEL, NANCY and ELIZA.

All except one of his children--who married and died in North Carolina--came to Sangamon county, and their histories are given each as the head of a family of early settlers. He came to Sangamon county after nearly all his children were settled here, and died Sept. 27, 1833. His remains were buried at Richland Baptist church, in Cartwright township. From the earliest records in some branches of the family in this county, I found the name spelled as it is at the head of this sketch, but they have very generally permitted it to be changed to Purvines, probably because without precision in speaking the original name, the sound would be that produced by the modern spelling which is now adopted by all the descendants in Illinois, as follows:

PURVINES, DAVID SIMPSON, was born May 18, 1787

PURVINES, ALEXANDER C., born March 16, 1794

PURVINES, JOHN G., born July 8, 1796

PURVINES, ELIZABETH, born in Cabarras county, North Carolina

PURVINES, MATILDA, born in North Carolina

PURVINES, MARGARET, born in North Carolina

PURVINES, JAMES, born about 1798

PURVINES. SAMUEL, was born Aug. 1, 1801

PURVINES, NANCY, born in North Carolina

PURVINES, ELIZA, born in North Carolina

PURVINES, JAMES S., was born Dec. 18, 1805