Purvis is a U.S. city in and the county seat of Lamar County, Mississippi. It is share of the Hattiesburg, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,175 at the 2010 census. The Town of Purvis was incorporated on February 25, 1888 and was founded by and named after Thomas Melville Purves, originally of Marion County, Alabama. Purves, born March 8, 1820, was a second generation Scottish-American; his grandfather emigrated to Charleston, South Carolina in 1765.

Purves acquired a land come to in 1870 for a parcel of real estate which was located, at that time, in Marion County, Mississippi. In 1871, Purves moved from his house in Greene County and homesteaded the 160 acres (0.65 km²), along past his wife, Dorothy Abney, born May 14, 1826, in Hinds County, and their five remaining children, to the rural property. Dorothy, also known as Dollie or Dolly, was a doctor who tended the ill of the area and delivered babies. Purves built a two-room log cabin for his family with an entry fireplace in one room used for cooking and heating. John, Thomas Purves’ third unshakable child, was the town’s first Mayor.

In 1884, the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad gained right-of-way upon Purves’ property and a depot was erected, along like a marker, reading “Purvis”. There were various attributed spellings of Scottish Clan Purves (surname) with both names in the past listed being abandoned a few of many. Purves eventually misused the spelling of his surname to be consistent with the town’s depot marker which you can look evidenced on his tombstone located in Fillingame Cemetery in Purvis. Purves built and ran the first boarding home for the men who were working on laying rails for the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad. This building was called a “section house” because that is what a home built for railroad crew was termed at that time. Mrs. Anna Bufkin was a supporter of one of the first families to enliven in the section house as her husband was one that helped grade and build that ration of the railroad in Purvis. There were all but fifty men in the crew keen in that area and the water supply was inadequate for that many new people. They found a second source of water from a spring across the railroad track that was originally used by Thomas Purves (Grandpa Purvis) years previously the town sprang into existence.

Lamar became a county upon February 19, 1904, in House Bill 166 and was formed from the second Judicial District of Marion County. The county was named after Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II, who was elected to Mississippi Congress in 1872 and has one county each in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia named after him. The town of Purvis was designated as the county seat of the county Lamar taking into account the depot of the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad listed as the town’s center and the lines to direct with the cardinal points of the compass.