Augustus Johnston

Augustus Johnston (ca. 1729 – 1790) was an Attorney General in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations from 1758 to 1766 and is the namesake of Johnston, Rhode Island. He also served briefly as a stamp distributor during the controversial Stamp Act 1765 protests and later fled Rhode Island after the Revolutionary War due to his Tory sympathies.

Early life and career

Johnston was born near Perth Amboy, New Jersey around 1729 to George Johnston and Bathsheba Lucas. His paternal grandfather emigrated from Scotland. Johnston's father died when he was young and his mother remarried to Matthew Robinson. Johnston was eventually educated in New York before moving to Newport, Rhode Island, where he became a voter on April 30, 1751. Johnston studied law with his step-father, Matthew Robinson, a prominent, well-read Rhode Island lawyer with a large private library. Johnston's maternal grandfather, Augustus Lucas, a French Huguenot also lived in Newport and built the Lucas–Johnston House, which Johnston later inherited. After building a successful reputation as an attorney, Augustus Johnston was appointed in 1754 and again in 1756 to assist in drafting legislation for General Assembly. In October 1756 Johnston became a first lieutenant in a military regiment to be sent against Fort Crown Point during the French and Indian War. In June 1757 he was acting as attorney-general because the candidate elected died, and he was then reelected each year until May 1766. As Attorney General he helped to revise the colony's laws and worked to start a smallpox inoculation hospital. When the town of Johnston separated from Providence in 1759, it was purportedly named for the Attorney General.