John Goff Ballentine

This article is about the American statesman John Goff Ballentine. For John Ballantine the Gregory Peck character in the 1945 Alfred Hitchcock movie Spellbound follow the link.

John Goff Ballentine was an American politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives for Tennessee's 7th congressional district. He was born on May 20, 1825 in Pulaski, Tennessee in Giles County. He graduated from Wurtemberg Academy in 1841, from the University of Nashville in 1845, and from the law department of Harvard University in 1848. He was a member of the faculty of Livingston Law School in New York. He commenced the practice of law in Pulaski.

John Ballentine moved to Mississippi about 1854, continued the practice of law, and engaged in agricultural pursuits. He settled in Memphis, Tennessee in 1860. He served as a colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He returned the Pulaski, Tennessee and was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses. He served from March 4, 1883 to March 3, 1887. He declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1886 and retired from active pursuits. He died in Pulaski, Tennessee on November 23, 1915. He was interred in the New Pulaski Cemetery.