There are three houses in the Town of Kingstree built before the Civil War that still stand at their original locations. Some time ago, we looked at the Heller House on Academy Street. You can read about it here. Today, we'll look at the second of these houses, also on Academy Street, and two of its early owners. It is known as the John Gotea Pressley House, or sometimes the Pressley/Hirsch/Green/Hamby House, and was built in 1855.
Born in Williamsburg County in May 1833, John Gotea Pressley graduated with honors from The Citadel in 1851. He then "read law" in Charleston with his uncle B.C. Pressley and was admitted to the bar at age 21. He returned to Kingstree where he set up a law firm. He and his wife Julia started their married life in 1854 in the old Rich-Armstrong house, one of several houses over the years that were located on the property that later became the old Kingstree Elementary School and is now the District Office for the Williamsburg County School District.
A year later, he bought acreage from Virginia and Dr. James Brockinton and began building a one-and-a-half story Greek Revival-style home to which he added a very Southern rain porch. While the house today sits in the heart of Kingstree's residential district, at the time of its construction, it would have been considered a country home. The Brockintons who lived in the old Kingstree Academy building were John and Julia Pressley's nearest neighbors. The property on which the Pressleys built their home was at one time a portion of the Dr. Thomas Day Singleton plantation, which Virginia Singleton Brockinton had inherited.
It appears that John G. Pressley farmed some of the acreage surrounding his home as the Charleston Daily Courier reported in August 1858 that "John G. Pressley informs us that while taking a stroll through his fields on Sabbath evening last, he suddenly met up with and succeeded in killing a rattlesnake of the following curious (in one respect) description: eight fangs instead of two, four on each side of the mouth. This snake measured five feet, two inches and had 15 rattles and a button. Mr. Pressley also informs us that he killed one about 10 days ago near the same place with 11 rattles and a button."
In November of that year, J.G. Pressley was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives from Williamsburg County. As tensions built between North and South, Pressley was a member of the Secession Convention and signed South Carolina's Ordinance of Secession on December 20, 1860. To prove that his signature meant something he immediately enlisted in Captain Gregg's Regiment of the South Carolina Volunteers. In April 1862, he was promoted to Major of the Eutaw Battalion and in July of that year became a Lieutenant Colonel for the 35th Regiment of the South Carolina Volunteers, a position he held until the end of the war. He was severely wounded at the Battle of Port Walthall Junction in Virginia in May 1864, after which one bone from his arm was totally removed, leaving him with little use of one hand.
After the war, Pressley returned to Kingstree where he continued to take an active interest in public service. The Town of Kingstree was incorporated by the state legislature in 1866, and in January 1867, John G. Pressley was sworn in as one of the first wardens (town council) of the town. Another attorney, Samuel W. Maurice, had been elected intendant (mayor). Other wardens were George Purvis Nelson, Morris Schwartz, and William W. Ward. Pressley also served as a county judge for Williamsburg County from 1866-1869.
He continued to practice law in Kingstree. In addition, he entered into partnerships with Pressley Barron in Manning and A.W. Dozier, Jr., in Marion to expand his law practice across the Pee Dee region.
As the 1860s drew to a close, a large number of South Carolinians became increasingly discouraged by the political climate, especially with their feelings of disenfranchisement under Reconstruction. Many of them, including John G. Pressley and his brother, James Fowler Pressley, decided to move to California. The Pressley families sailed on a steamer from New York on March 16, 1869.
Settling in Sonoma County, California, John G. Pressley was elected City Attorney for the town of Santa Rosa in 1873. Two years later, he was elected a county judge. In 1880, he was elected a Superior Court Judge. His name was also put in nomination to become an associate justice on the California Supreme Court. However, another better-known judge, Jackson Temple, received that appointment. But after their retirement from the courts, John G Pressley and Jackson Temple, became law partners in Santa Rosa.
By 1875, no fewer than six former South Carolinians held important political positions in California, including that of Lieutenant Governor.
Pressley had been a founding member of the Kingstree Baptist Church and was a leading member of the Baptist Church of Santa Rosa. And despite the fact that he lived across the country, an 1874 catalog for Furman University shows "Col. Jno. G. Pressly" as a board member.
Pressley crossed the country to visit his old home in Kingstree in 1885, where he gathered information that he compiled into an unpublished family history for his descendants.
In the summer of 1895, Pressley went as usual on his annual camping trip to Camp Pressley in the mountains near Santa Rosa. On July 5, he died in his tent of a heart attack. His obituary noted that he and his wife Julia were greatly beloved by all who knew them.
In 1942, one of John and Julia Pressley's grandsons visited South Carolina from Fresno, CA. He paid a visit to The State newspaper where he displayed for the news staff the pen he said his grandfather had used to sign the Ordinance of Secession. The resulting news article described it as having an ebony staff on which was engraved "John G. Pressley, December 20, 1860," and a gold nib. The reporter speculated that it was likely that all the signers used their own pens and retained them as souvenirs.
Before his move to California, Pressley had sold his Kingstree acreage, including his home, to John M. Hirsch, who, within months, had deeded it to his son, Melvin J. Hirsch.
According to his obituary, Melvin Hirsch was born August 14, 1842, in Mexico, although all census records indicate that he was born in South Carolina. He moved with his parents to Charleston, where, after completing his education, he worked for Mordecai & Co., the largest importer in Charleston with a steamship line running between Charleston and Havana.
After the outbreak of the Civil War, Melvin Hirsch joined theWashington Light Infantry, where he served as Regimental Commissary for Col. Simonton's regiment. He fought for the Confederates at the Battle of Battery Wagner, while Stephen A. Swails, who would later become Hirsch's law partner, fought in the same battle for the Union with the 54th Massachusetts.
Shortly after the war, Hirsch made his way to Kingstree where he opened a mercantile company. As one of few white Republicans in Williamsburg County, he was elected Clerk of Court for Williamsburg County in 1868 and was named a trial justice for the county in 1870. In 1872, he was elected to the SC House of Representatives where he served two terms. In 1876, he was elected Solicitor for the Third Judicial Circuit, serving until 1880, when he withdrew from politics to devote his time to his law practice. He did, however, serve as as trustee for the Kingstree school for a number of years after he left politics and was chairman of the Williamsburg County Pension Board for the last three years of his life.
In 1867, Melvin Hirsch was a member of the Coroner's Jury that heard testimony regarding the tragic fire at the Williamsburg County Jail which killed 22 prisoners. You may read more about that fire here.
Hirsch and his law partner, Stephen Swails, were parties in what was alleged by some to be "The Williamsburg Land Swindle." Hirsch was clerk of court and Swails county auditor and state senator at the time, and the transaction involved property from the Estate of Dr. Staggers which was sold to John H. Hirsch, Melvin Hirsch's father. John Hirsch then sold the property to the State of South Carolina for $3,000, which many argued was well below its market value. It was believed by many that the younger Hirsch and Swails had worked some kind of nefarious deal.
At some point in their partnership, Hirsch and Swails had a serious falling out, so that when Stephen Swails was "banished" from Williamsburg County, it was not his old law partner who took care of his business dealings here while he was in exile in Washington, but Louis Jacobs, who had served as business manager for The Williamsburg Republican, the newspaper Stephen Swails founded in 1873. Melvin Hirsch was an associate editor of that paper, which the Newberry Herald called a "credibly printed and edited sheet."
It's possible the split between Swails and Hirsch occurred in 1877 after Hirsch published very complimentary statements about Governor Wade Hampton in an assessment of the Third Judicial Circuit. In 1878, Swails wrote Governor Hampton complaining about the ill treatment he had experienced at the hands of a group of white men who harassed him after a political rally. Hampton referred Swails to Solicitor Hirsch in his reply. This, too, may also have played a role in Swails' and Hirsch's falling out.
In 1889, Sumter's Watchman & Southron newspaper reported, "Melvin J. Hirsch, Esq., of Kingstree owns a violin made in Brescia, Italy, by Gion Paolo Maggini in 1696 and is therefore 193 years old. Mr. Hirsch's father who was an accomplished musician owned this violin which is still in a perfect state of preservation, both in appearance and tone." The Manning Times added that it was probably the oldest violin in the state. [According to the Smithsonian Institution, Maggini died circa 1630, which makes it impossible for him to have made a violin in 1696, so either the violin was not a Maggini, or it was much older than it was believed to be.] Today, an authenticated Maggini violin ranges in price from $200,000 to $2 million.
Melvin J. Hirsch died after a long battle with kidney disease on May 28, 1903. The house remained in the Hirsch family until 1924, when it was sold to Nita Epps who owned it for 20 years before selling to Wylma McCollough Green. Mrs. Green's daughter, Peggy Hamby, owned the house until this year. It remains a private residence. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 10, 1997.
The history of the area surrounding this house is reflected in street names, such as Pressley, Hirsch, and Brockington streets, and Singleton and Gilland avenues.
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