Bucks County PA Archives Biographies.....Purdy, John M.
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joe Patterson, Patricia Bastik & Susan Walters Dec 2009

Source: History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania; edited by 
J.H. Battle; A. Warner & Co.; 1887
Doylestown M-Z


JOHN M. PURDY proprietor of the Fountain house, Doylestown, 
was born January 17, 1833, at the Green Tree hotel in that 
place, of which his father was proprietor.  John M. is 
descended in the fourth generation from John Purdy, an Irish 
Presbyterian, who emigrated to this country in 1740 and 
settled on Neshaminy creek near the site of the old 
paper-mill.  Here he married Grissey Dunlap.  William Purdy, 
their son, was a soldier in the war of 1812, and 
prothonotary of Bucks county.  He married Mary Folwell, and 
their son Thomas married Elizabeth Cornell.  He was born in 
1801 and died in 1844, in the second year of his incumbency 
as sheriff of Bucks county.  John M., his son, was reared 
near Davisville in Southampton township, and attended the 
schools of that locality.  He was apprenticed to learn the 
trade of carpenter in 1849, and for ten years made this his 
occupation.  In 1860 he began farming on the old Vansant 
farm at Somerton, in Philadelphia county.  In 1867 he 
entered upon his long career in the hotel business at New 
Hope.  In 1872 he was elected sheriff of Bucks county on the 
democratic ticket by a large majority, this being the only 
instance in the history of the county where father and son 
have held that office.  In 1876, at the expiration of his 
term, he engaged in the coal and lumber business at 
Doylestown.  In 1878 he bought the old Cornell hotel 
opposite the court-house.  He afterward removed to the 
Fountain house, owned in partnership with ex-sheriff John T. 
Simpson, and their management has made it the leading hotel 
in the town and the most complete in all its appointments in 
the county.  The uniform courtesy with which Mr. Purdy 
entertains his guests has placed him in high esteem with the 
traveling public.  The first wife of Mr. Purdy was Sarah, 
daughter of John and Rebecca (Vansant) Roberts; the children 
by this union were Rebecca, wife of Levi L. James; Thomas, 
in the employ of the Pennsylvania railroad company at Broad 
street, Philadelphia; Harry R., druggist at Bloomingdale 
asylum, N. Y.; and Frank V., an attache' of the hotel.  The 
second wife of Mr. Purdy is Carrie, daughter of Christian 
and Cordelia (Worthington) Pearson, to whom four children 
have been born:  George S., Charles C., Anna V., and John 
M., Jr.