The Caswell County, North Carolina, unincorporated community of Purley, along with the communities of Blanche and Providence, makes up Dan River Township. On a farm in this area a process for curing brightleaf tobacco was discovered by a slave in 1839 and improved in the 1850s. Tradition relates that the name "Purley" came from the Samuel Satterwhite Harrison House that sat on a hill and was painted a "pearly white" when such a paint scheme was a novelty.