Samuel Medary [SEP] position held
at Baltimore in 1844, where he was instrumental in the nomination of James K. Polk; and at Cincinnati in 1856, where he was the President pro tem. President James Buchanan appointed him as the third Territorial Governor of Minnesota from April 23, 1857, to May 24, 1858. Minnesota became a state on May 11, 1858, and elected Henry Hastings Sibley as the state's first governor.
Samuel Medary was also Governor of Kansas Territory from December 1858 to December 1860. William F. Wheeler was territory Librarian and
was the most powerful speech on education ever made in Ohio, but Samuel Medary of the "Ohio Statesman" gave him the name Booby Johnson disrespectfully. The nickname stuck among Johnston's friends.
Johnston also wrote the law which abolished imprisonment for debt in Ohio, when not accompanied by fraud. He was in Steubenville at the time when founder of the city Bezaleel Wells went bankrupt, and was jailed for his debts. The 1802 Ohio Constitution allowed a non-fraudulent debtor to be held in prison until he "delivered