Ora J. Purington (1851-1937) was born in Richland, New York, and died in Camillus, New York. As a young man he worked as a farmer. In the 1870s he joined the Oswego Praying Band, composed of laymen engaged in evangelical work in northern New York. He formally entered the Methodist Episcopal ministry in 1879 and was ordained a deacon in 1883. Thereafter he built and served in parsonages in Eaton, Kirkville, and Williamson, New York, and a church in Warners, New York. In 1880 he married Susanna "Susie" A. Purington (b. Ernst), and they lived in Richland, moving to Aurelius, New York, sometime prior to 1900. They then moved to Manlius, New York, by 1910 and finally settled in Camillus by 1915. In 1886 Purington wrote to Mary Baker Eddy from Kirkville that an acquaintance had studied Christian Science with Ellen E. Cross, (d. 1932), a student of Eddy, and had been healed of longstanding invalidism. Her healing prompted him and his brother, George E. Purington, also a Methodist clergyman, to become interested in studying with Eddy, but the records do not reflect that they ever did so.

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