Queer Places:
4562 S Presa St, San Antonio, TX 78223
Albert Ross Puryear (born August 19, 1926) was born in San Antonio, Texas. He was involved with James Fugaté, who published the gay novel Quatrefoil under the pseudonym James Barr.
On December 10, 1955, a group of gay men met at Sam Morford’s apartment in Greenwich Village to form the New York Area Council of the Mattachine Society, Inc. The group became one of the most influential gay rights groups of the 1950s and 1960s. Seven men, apparently all friends from The League, met at Morford’s apartment to begin forming the New York Area Council of Mattachine. Tony Segura and Morford were joined by Joe McCarthy (died 1986), the third in the group’s leadership triumvirate, who was a Fordham University graduate in mathematics and ran a machinery export business downtown. The others were George Kochevitsky, a Russian pianist who had survived exile in Siberia for his homosexuality; Malcolm Thurburn, a Scottish artist/writer, who was in his late 60s; Sven Nivens (a pseudonym), a Swedish linguist, who worked for an international firm; and Albert Ross Puryear, a young hustler and prison parolee.
At the general New York Council meeting on January 8, 1957, Morford was unanimously elected chairman, but he moved to San Francisco in May. Controversy and jealousies surrounding the affairs and criminal exploits of Albert Ross Puryear, unfortunately created a schism between Morford and Segura. It was also the beginnings of a serious rift that developed between the New York council and San Francisco, that contributed to the eventual demise of the national organization.
In October 1968, Puryear was arrested in connection with forged money. Lincoln police arrested the 41- year-old man as he was boarding a bus at the Continental Bus Depot. Police said Puryear was wanted by law enforcement authorities in several other states and in Canada, Mexico and the Virgin Islands. Police said Puryear was being sought by postal authorities in Idaho and Washington State in connection with the theft of 190 blank money orders. He was sentenced to 4 years, but was paroled in November 1969.
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