***Isaac Lawrence Purcell***
(b. July 17, 1856; d. 1930)
South Carolina. Born free. Mulatto.
Occupation: carpenter, lawyer.
Father's occupation: house carpenter.
Isaac L. Purcell was born in Winnsboro, South Carolina to John W. and Jane Purcell, free persons of color living in South Carolina. The father John was a house carpenter from Charleston, South Carolina. John was well-regarded by the white community in Winnsboro. A newspaper obituary described him as someone who was "well known in Winnsboro and commanded the respect of all the whites. He was a remarkably good carpenter, and his honest, industrious life made him a good citizen."
Purcell attended a school for African Americans run by the Episcopal church and the Winnsboro public schools. He also attended the Brainard Institute (in Chester, South Carolina) for a term and then spent the 1872-73 academic year in the College Preparatory program at Biddle University (now Johnson C. Smith University) in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Purcell left Biddle University and registered as a student at the University of South Carolina on October 5, 1874. He entered as a college student following the classical studies track, but the university closed before he completed his degree.
After the university closure, Purcell returned to Winnsboro and worked as a carpenter. He left South Carolina for Palatka, Florida in 1885. There he began privately studied the law. (At the time, a law degree was not required to practice law in Florida.)
Purcell steadily advanced in the legal profession. He qualified for admission to the Florida bar on October 8, 1889, gained admission to the Florida Supreme Court in 1891, to the U.S. Circuit and District Courts in 1897, and finally was admitted to practice before the U. S. Supreme Court on November 8, 1901.
Purcell's work as a lawyer focused on the Jacksonville and Pensacola areas. Form 1900 to 1915, he worked with lawyers Samuel Decatur McGill and Judson Douglas Wetmore to enforce the constitutional rights of African Americans and defend African Americans facing the death penalty. In 1905, he and Wetmore brought a legal case challenging Jim Crow laws in Florida governing transportation. They were successful, and consequently separate but equal provisions for streetcar accommodations were removed in Jacksonville and Pensacola. Booker T. Washington, in his book The Negro in Business which surveys successful African American businessmen, gives Purcell as an example of one of the successful and respected African American lawyers working in Pensacola.
Purcell was active in politics, especially in promoting the Republican Party. He served a 12-year term as chairman of the county Republican Executive Committee, was an alderman for the city of Palatka for many years, and was elected as a delegate to the 1896 Republican National Convention.
Purcell died in 1930 and is buried in West View Cemetery in Palatka, Florida.
Sources
1). Smith, John Clay. Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
2). Culp, D. W. Twentieth Century Negro Literature. J. L. Nichols & Co. 1902.
3). 1860; Census Place: Winnsboro, Fairfield, South Carolina; Page: 208
4). 1870; Census Place: Township 4, Fairfield, South Carolina; Roll: M593_1496; Page: 83B
5). 1880; Census Place: Winnsboro, Fairfield, South Carolina; Roll: 1229; Page: 13A
6). 1910; Census Place: Jacksonville Ward 3, Duval, Florida; Roll: T624_159; Page: 13A
7). 1930; Census Place: Jacksonville, Duval, Florida; Page: 2A;
8). Presbyterian Committee of Missions for Freedmen. Catalogue and Circular of the Biddle Memorial Institute, Charlotte, N.C., 1872-73. Printed by Jas. M'Millin, 1873.
9). "A Good Colored Man Gone". The Fairfield news and herald., February 12, 1890, p. 3.
Posted 3/27/20