Richard Clauselle Puryear

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Richard Clauselle Puryear (9 February 1801 – 30 July 1867) was a U.S. Congressman from North Carolina between the years of 1853 and 1857.

Puryear, born in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, moved to Surry County, North Carolina as a child. He became a planter near Huntsville, and served as a militia colonel and the magistrate of Surry County before being elected to the North Carolina House of Commons.

Puryear served terms in the North Carolina House in 1838, 1844, 1846, and 1852, as well as a term in the North Carolina Senate before being elected as a Whig to the U.S. House in 1852. He was re-elected in 1854 as a candidate of the American Party, and ran unsuccessfully for a third term in 1856.

Puryear was a delegate to the Provisional Confederate Congress in 1861 and to the Peace Congress following the American Civil War. He returned to farming and died as his plantation, "Shallow Ford," in Yadkin County in 1867.

• Richard Clauselle Puryear at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

Preceded by none

Representative to the Provisional Confederate Congress from North Carolina 1861

Succeeded by none