Chatham County GaArchives Biographies.....Purse, Thomas 1874 - living in 1913
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 13, 2004, 12:16 am

Author: William Harden
p. 567-570

   THOMAS PURSE. It is safe to say that no citizen of the commonwealth of
Georgia is more widely and favorably known than Thomas Purse, secretary and
superintendent of the Savannah board of trade, one of the most important and
efficient bodies of its kind in the United States. Mr. Purse was elected to this
highly important office in 1907, and he has since met its responsibilities with
distinction. Since its organization in 1883 the Savannah board of trade has
steadily developed into a powerful factor in the commercial life of the south
and Mr. Purse has been influential in bringing about the accomplishment of its
objects, which are: to maintain a commercial exchange; to promote uniformity in
the customs and usages of merchants; to inculcate principles of justice and
equity in trade; to facilitate the speedy adjustment of business disputes; to
acquire and disseminate valuable commercial and economic information and
generally to secure to its members the benefits of co-operation in the
furtherance of their legitimate pursuits. Through one of its departments, naval
stores alone, it is known throughout the world of trade and commerce; and its
renown through its connection with the great lumber interests is almost equally
widespread. The board's activities and usefulness, however, are not confined to
these two industries; it is the keystone upon which rests all of the extensive
commercial, industrial, mercantile and financial activities of Savannah. In
aiding local concerns in the extension of Savannah's trade; in promoting
substantial improvements of every kind in the city; in the building of new
railroads; in opposing or favoring proposed state or national legislation,
accordingly 'as it is objectionable or beneficent; in securing harbor and
wharfage improvements; in locating new enterprises; in securing new territory
for local concerns—in all of these and in many more ways the body has been of
the greatest usefulness. In fact, it has done and is doing everything possible
that it can do in a conservative way for the welfare and development of one of
the most beautiful and progressive cities of the South.

   Mr. Purse has become known as one of the expert board of trade officials in
the country. With the foundation of expert knowledge as a statistician, which
forms an important feature of the board's work, he is in addition a thoroughly
live, resourceful and efficient official in carrying out the greatly varied
activities of the board. He takes up the various matters affecting shipping
interests, both ocean and rail, and is highly successful in adjusting such. He
keeps in touch constantly with the many ramifications of the board of trade's
interests, not only with local trade, but with the commerce of the world. His is
a fascinating profession, and to meet its requirements he is peculiarly fitted.

   Mr. Purse is a native son of Savannah and one of those who have elected to
remain permanently within its borders. The date of his birth was March 19, 1874,
and his parents were Capt. Daniel G. and Laura (Ashby) Purse, the former, now
deceased, a native of Savannah, and the latter, who survives, a native of
Fauquier county, Virginia.

   Thomas Purse was educated in the public schools of Savannah and in the
Georgia Military Institute, near Atlanta. For ten years he was employed in the
accounting department of the Antwerp Naval Stores Company in Savannah. Following
this he was connected as an expert accountant with the firm of Mustin & Marsh,
public accountants, and in 1907, as previously mentioned, accepted his present
position as superintendent and secretary of the Savannah board of trade.

   Mr. Purse's wife, before marriage, was Miss Elizabeth Morrison, who was born
in South Carolina. When she was a child her parents died and she was reared and
educated by her grandfather, Hon. John Lawton, of Lawtonville, South Carolina,
one of the leading citizens of that state. Mrs. Purse is now one of the
well-known hostesses in exclusive social circles of the Forest city. Their union
was celebrated on the 5th day of May, 1898, and they share their home with two
children: Thomas, Jr., and Elizabeth Lawton.

   Mr. Purse is a member of St. John's Episcopal church, and he is a Scottish
Rite Mason. For some years previous to his marriage he was an active member of
Company B, Savannah Volunteer Guards, and he is still interested in things
military.

   In 1908, Capt. Daniel G. Purse, father of the foregoing gentleman and one of
Savannah's foremost citizens in any day or generation,

"Gave his honors to the world again, His blessed part to Heaven; and slept in
peace."

Captain Purse was one to whom public spirit and civic loyalty was far more than
a mere rhetorical expression and it may truly be said that there was nothing of
public 4 import in the Forest city during his lifelong residence here in which
he was not helpfully interested. It was, however, not merely in the capacity of
a helper that he was valuable in the economic and civic history of his native
city and state, for he was a man of great initiative, with a rare capacity for
the handling of affairs of great scope and importance, and in the splendid ideas
which he metamorphosed into realities he finished to himself a monument more
enduring than bronze. When the nation went, down into the valley of decision in
the dark days of the '60s, firm in the conscientious conviction of the supreme
right of the states to sever their connection with the national government, he
enlisted in the Confederate service and served as officer during the war.

   Captain Purse was born in this city November 14, 1839, the son of Thomas and
Eliza Jane (Gugle) Purse, the former a native of Winchester, Virginia, and the
latter of Savannah, Georgia. Thomas Purse came to this city in youth and played
a prominent part in its affairs. In 1849-50 he represented his district in the
state senate and in 1862 was mayor of Savannah; for many years before and after
that period he was a member of the board of aldermen, and he filled many other
civil and political positions of distinction and honor. He held" the
institutions of the South in ardent affection and it was a great trial to him
that he could not enter the ranks of the Confederate army in Civil war times,
but physical infirmities made this impossible. He passed to the great beyond at
the age of seventy years, but there are many of the elder generation who still
remember this man of fiery enthusiasm and loyal energy. He was one of the
original projectors and promoters of the Central of Georgia Railroad. He was its
first superintendent and he invented the first time-table ever employed in the
operation of railroad trains, the equated principle which he formulated being
now utilized on railroads throughout the world.

   Capt. Daniel G. Purse received his early education in private schools in
Savannah and Sandersville, Georgia, subsequently entering Emory College at
Oxford, Georgia, which institution he left at the end of his junior year ^(in
1857), to take a commercial course in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, under Peter
Duff, a celebrated accountant, of that day. His first adventure as an active
factor in the busy world was in a pedagogical capacity, taking charge of
Monteith academy in Savannah, but retaining his preceptorship only for a
twelvemonth. He then accepted a clerkship and shortly after bought out a paint
and oil business, which he was successfully conducting at the outbreak of the
war between the states. When hostilities began he was not able to leave with
Company A of the Oglethorpe Light Infantry, with which he had been previously
connected. Later he took an active part in recruiting and organizing Company B,
which was attached to the First Georgia Volunteer Infantry and of which he
became third sergeant. He was serving as sergeant-major at Fort Pulaski when he
was transferred to the ordinance department at Savannah and served most
acceptably in this department from November, 1861, to November, 1864. Within
this period he was tendered and declined a second lieutenancy in a camp of
instruction in the northern part of the state and was offered the captaincy of a
company in the field, but his services in the ordnance department were
considered so valuable that it declined to release him at the time, with the
understanding that he was to be commissioned and assigned to duty in the field
as soon as he could be spared. In November, 1864, he was ordered to Augusta,
Georgia, where he organized an engineer's supply station for the military
department of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, with a commission as military
storekeeper of the corps of engineers and the pay and allowance of captain of
infantry. He was always under the direct command of Gen. J. F. Gilmer, chief of
engineers in the Confederate service. In 1862, while in the ordnance department,
as the result of a severe illness, Captain Purse was rendered unfit for field
service. He served in the engineer's corps until the close of the war, receiving
a parole at Athens, Georgia, August 16, 1865, at the hands of Maj. M. A. Ewen,
of the One hundred and sixty-sixth New York volunteers and provost marshal. He
then returned to Savannah and in the beautiful old city lived out the remainder
of his life.

   He was long connected with the Central of Georgia Railway and for fourteen
years successively was elected president of the Savannah board of trade,
resigning in his fourteenth term on account of the pressure of private business
interests. From 1881 to 1885 he served as president of the Savannah Bank & Trust
Company. He was at the time of his death president of the Interstate Sugar-Cane
Growers' Association, which accomplished a magnificent work in promoting the
sugar industry in the South. He completed the circle of both the York and
Scottish Rites of Masonry, taking the thirty-second degree in the latter. He was
a leading member and communicant of St. John's church, Protestant Episcopal, in
which he served as secretary, treasurer and vestryman, retiring as senior warden
of the church, from parochial office, in 1895.

   On December 20, 1865, Captain Purse was united in marriage to Miss Laura
Ashby, daughter of Marshall and Lucy (Cooke) Ashby, of Fauquier county,
Virginia. His married life was in all respects the fruition of his early hopes
and the union was blessed by the birth of four children.

   To enumerate the movements for civic and state progress and betterment with
which Captain Purse was identified, would be almost to give a summary of the
history of the progress of Savannah during the entire period of his active
years, the impress of his enterprise, vigor and zeal being stamped upon every
material undertaken that fostered the growth and prestige of the city of his
birth. As alderman and chairman of the finance committee in 1877, after Savannah
had been scourged and rendered almost bankrupt through the yellow fever epidemic
of the preceding year, he succeeded in funding an oppressive bonded indebtedness
upon terms much more favorable to the city than the most optimistic thought
possible, maintaining, meanwhile, the respect and confidence of the city's
creditors and his fellow citizens. When he advanced the idea that a railway
should be constructed across nearly twenty miles of salt marsh to Tybee island,
it was received with doubt and its author was pronounced a visionary; yet he
built it, and the island is now the favorite summer resort of many Savannah and
Georgia people. He was president of the road until it passed into the control of
the Central of Georgia Railway, on terms most favorable to the original owners.
The domestic water supply of Savannah was drawn from a muddy river and
unsanitary surface wells. Captain Purse put down the first artesian well in
Savannah and the second in the state, demonstrating the fact that unfailing
crystal waters flow in subterranean channels to the sea, and as the result of
his experimentation the towns, cities and islands of the south Atlantic coast
have a pure water supply, drawn from depths ranging from two hundred to fifteen
hundred feet. Savannah's entire water supply is now derived from artesian wells.
Upon the very beach of Tybee island, where the salt waves wash its white sands,
Captain Purse sunk artesian wells and fresh water was found for thirsty pleasure
seekers. He was the leader in the project, for the deepening of the channel in
the river from Savannah to the sea. "With unparalleled energy he instituted a
campaign of education, enlisting the interest and support of congressmen in
every state in the Union, at a time when there was a growing tendency to curtail
river and harbor appropriations. By his pen and voice, by his visits to state
governors and to commercial bodies in the principal cities of the West and
South, and by attending meetings of state agricultural societies, he marshaled a
corps of auxiliaries that made the way easy for the generous appropriations
which resulted in the deepening of the channel of the Savannah river so that
vessels drawing 32 feet can now enter and depart from the harbor, the result
being that Savannah has stupendous shipping interests, ranking her as the first
seaport of the south Atlantic coast.

   During the five years the Savannah bureau of freight and transportation was
in operation Captain Purse was its able and zealous commissioner, the
organization doing a wonderful work for Savannah in the way of regulating
freight rates and adjusting other matters touching the commercial welfare of the
city. In purely local enterprises he was repeatedly chosen the leader; in
securing the camp for Lee's army corps at Savannah in 1898; in bringing
President McKinley and his cabinet to the city in 1899, and Admiral and Mrs.
Dewey in 1900; in securing to Savannah its massive Georgia marble government
building and in securing the site for the DeSoto hotel. He took great interest
in legislation for the prevention of adulterated foods and contributed earnest
and logical essays to the press of the country in advocacy of federal
legislation in this direction. The pure syrup law of Georgia owes its passage
largely to the public sentiment created by his public letters and his personal
efforts throughout the state and at the national capital.


Additional Comments:
From:

A HISTORY OF SAVANNAH AND SOUTH GEORGIA
BY
WILLIAM HARDEN

VOLUME I
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1913


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