Will Purvis

Common card · No. 404401

William Isaac Purvis (September 27, 1872 – October 13, 1938) was a member of the White Caps, a white supremacist group with foundations similar to the Ku Klux Klan. He was convicted of the murder of Will Buckley, a fellow White Cap, in 1894. In 1893, the Buckley family's black farmhand was flogged by a group of the White Caps. In retaliation, Buckley reported the incident and vowed to testify against in front of a grand jury in Marion County, Mississippi. While riding home, Buckley, accompanied by his brother Jim and their farmhand, was shot and killed along a road leading to the Purvis home. Purvis would be sentenced to death by hanging despite his claims of innocence. However, when officials attempted to carry out his death sentence on February 7, 1894, he survived when the noose loosened around his neck. The mob threatened to riot when the sheriff tried to hang him again. In June 1895, a court resentenced Purvis to death. The Supreme Court of Mississippi upheld the sentence in November...

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