Henry S. Puryear was born on April 11, 1841, in Yadkin County, North Carolina, to Richard C. Puryear and Elizabeth Clingman. His father was a United States Congressman and a farmer who owned $20,000 of real estate and $36,350 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Yadkin County.

 

Puryear enlisted in the Confederate army on May 1, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company B of the 27^th North Carolina Infantry on June 20. The regiment took part in the Seven Days’ Battles. In the summer of 1862, Puryear provided a substitute, and he was discharged on August 17, 1862. He eventually returned to the Confederate army as a 1^st lieutenant serving on the staff of his uncle, General Thomas Clingman.

 

He returned to North Carolina after the war. He attended the University of North Carolina and eventually established a legal practice in Yadkinville, North Carolina. He moved to Concord, North Carolina, in 1877. He never married, and by 1880, he was living in his sister Elizabeth’s household in Concord. One writer described him as a “very able lawyer” with a “wonderful gift of analyzing a case and foretelling the result.” Failing health prompted him to retire in 1897. He remained in his sister’s household until the 1910s. By 1920, he was a boarder in the household of William and Ethel Hershman in Concord. He died of “chronic valvular heart disease” in Concord on October 16, 1923.

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