Samuel Dwight was born in Berkeley County, South Carolina on September 13, 1743. A merchant, he later moved to the Little River area of Brunswick County, North Carolina, where he served as a local justice of the peace. An owner of enslaved people, Dwight received compensation when one of his enslaved people was found guilty of assisting in the murder of local planter Henry Williams and consequently executed. Later Dwight moved back to South Carolina, residing in Charleston, where he died in about 1789.