My Purves Ancestry and Historical Landmarks

Historical Markers for Pecan Cemetery and Purves Live Oak Cemetery in Purves Texas, near Dublin.

The Pecan Cemetary in Purves Texas, traces it's history to 1880. A memorial marker for Civil War casualty Daniel Turney 1829-1864, (my ggg-grandfather) bears the oldest death date, although he is actually buried in Tyler Texas. His only child Nancy Amanda Turney and my gg-grandfather James Bruce Purves (pictured below) married in 1869, and lived in Van Zandt and later Dublin, Erath county Tx. My grandfather Lorenzo Lee was the 4th of 11 children born to them. The town of Purves Texas was named after two of his older brothers, John Isaac who founded a church in the area in 1890, and William Henry who was the town's first postmaster in 1897.

                   James Bruce Purves

          

Historical Marker at Purves Cemetery Tabernacle.

Pecan Cememtery Tabernacle

In 1884 J.W. McKenzie deeded 3.5 acres of land for church and cemetery purposes in the Purves Community. A portion of the donated land has been been used as a burial ground since 1880. The Friendship Babtist Church disbanded in 1915 after serving the area for more than 30 years.
Lumber from that church building was used to construct this tabernacle in 1922. The building is a well preserved example of a group meeting shelter.


Below is a little about the birth and boom years of the town of Purves, in Erath County Texas.