John G. Pressley

John Gotea Pressley (May 24, 1833 – July 5, 1895) was an American lawyer, judge, and Lieutenant colonel during the American Civil War. Originally from South Carolina, Pressley moved to Santa Rosa, California where he served as an influential judge on the Sonoma County Superior Court for fifteen years.

Early life and career John Gotea Pressley was born May 24, 1833 in Williamsburg County, South Carolina to John Brockington Pressley (1810–1863) and Sarah Pressley (née Gotea) as the second of ten children. His father's family was descended from Scottish Covenanters and his mother's from French Huguenots. John B. Pressley was a successful and influential planter, and in 1848 he secured an appointment for John G. Pressley to attend The Citadel military academy in Charleston.

Shortly following the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Pressley enlisted with the 25th South Carolina Volunteers under the command of Charles Henry Simonton. Active in the local legal community, in 1875 Pressley was elected to the bench of the Sonoma County Court. He is buried in the Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery alongside his wife and several of his children.

Upon Pressley's death, Justice Jackson Temple of the Supreme Court of California, who had served on the Sonoma County bench with Pressley, eulogized him as "... a judge of the first class. While he was strong in his opinions he was practical to an extreme... His mind was essentially judicial. He had no great power as a pleader, but on matters of law his judgment was seldom wrong."

Today his one-time home in Kingstree, the Colonel John Gotea Pressley House, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Pressley Street in Santa Rosa is named for him.