Samuel Johnston (December 15, 1733 – August 17, 1816) was an American planter, lawyer, Grand Master of Freemasons, slave holder,[1] and statesman from Chowan County, North Carolina.

The passage of the Johnston Riot Act and others precipitated an even more significant enlargement of the Regulator movement and forced Royal Governor Tryon to call out the provincial militia, which culminated in the Battle of Alamance on May 16, 1771.

[5] After Royal Governor Josiah Martin abdicated in 1775, he was the highest-ranking official in the state until Richard Caswell was elected president of the Fifth Provincial Congress.

Johnston was the first Grand Master of Freemasons for the State of North Carolina, voted into office on 11 Dec 1787 to revive Masonic activities that had been defunct after breaking away from England.

This was reported[9] on July 10, 1781: Mr. [Samuel] Johnston having declined to accept the office of President, and offered such reasons as were satisfactory, the House proceeded to another election; and, the ballots being taken, the hon.

On the Hayes farm, Edenton, North Carolina once owned by Johnston in 1983 a copy of the Declaration of Independence was found; in 2024 a copy of The Constitution of the United States was found[11] Samuel Johnston's collection of books, which he bequeathed to his son James, is preserved in a full-scale replication of Hayes Plantation's library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The octagon-shaped historic room is on permanent exhibit in the North Carolina Collection Gallery in Wilson Library.