Samuel Jordan, 1578 to 1623, was an early Jamestowne settler and one of the first American colonial legislators, born in Wiltshire, England, son of Robert Jordan. The Jordans, or Jourdains, were of French descent, Huguenots associated with the protestant reformation.

Jordan traveled to the New World as part of the "Third Supply" of the Virginia Company, to the first English colony at Jamestown. He was a passenger on the Sea Venture, which became shipwrecked near Bermuda (perhaps the first example of the mythical Bermuda Triangle phenomenon), and kept a log of events as Governor Thomas West , Admiral George Somers , the other passengers and himself built two new ships from the old and, eight months late, finally arrived at Jamestown, to become the most permanent and successful part of the early colony. His account of the seagoing adventure may have been the inspiration for Shakespeare's play The Tempest.

He settled in a place which became his plantation, known as Jordan's Journey, built a home called Beggar's Bush (after the Fletcher play), and was elected to the first legislative assembly in America, the House of Burgesses in Jamestown.

He is known to Virginians as an Ancient Planter, being from the first colony, and his name is pronounced by locals now as "Jer'-den".