Elizabeth Williams was born in North Carolina in about 1751. The daughter of a prominent planter, Elizabeth married John Johnston in 1767. A resident of Bertie County, Elizabeth Johnston and several of her sisters-in-law were some of the first signers of a 1774 nonimportation agreement that later became known as the Edenton Tea Party Resolves. Elizabeth's act of resistance in support of the Patriot cause was just one piece of how her family resisted British rule. Not only was her father a colonel in the Martin County Regiment of the North Carolina Militia during the American Revolution, but her husband also served as a delegate to the North Carolina Provincial Congress and her brother-in-law Samuel Johnston later served as the state's governor. Elizabeth Johnston died in January 1789.