John Sargent Pillsbury (July 29, 1827 – October 18, 1901) was an American politician, businessman, and philanthropist. A Republican, he served as the eighth Governor of Minnesota from 1876 to 1882. He was a co-founder of the Pillsbury Company.

Pillsbury was born in Sutton, New Hampshire, of English descent, the son of John and Susan (Wadleigh) Pillsbury. He was a descendant of William Pillsbury, who emigrated from England to Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1640.^[1] In 1851, he opened a store in Warner, New Hampshire, partnering with Walter Harriman, a future Governor of New Hampshire and Civil War general.

Pillsbury married Mahala Fisk on November 3, 1856.^[13] He and Mahala had four children, daughters Addie, Susan May, and Sarah Belle, and then son Alfred.^[14] Addie married Charles M. Webster, but died at the age of 25; Susan married Frederic Beal Snyder and died at the age of 28; Sarah Belle married Edward C. Gale, an area lawyer and son of the area's first real estate developer, Samuel Chester Gale. Edward Gale was also an art collector and contributed to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) as well.^[15] Alfred did not go into business, but instead became an art collector. When he died in 1950, the works were donated to MIA.^[16][17]

His daughter's Susan's only son, John Pillsbury Snyder (1888 –1959), was a survivor of the RMS Titanic in 1912. John and his wife, Nelle, returning from their European honeymoon, are said to have been the first people to have entered the very first lifeboat, No. 7.

Pillsbury died on October 18, 1901, and is interred in Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, Minnesota.^[18] He is featured on a New Hampshire historical marker (number 44) along New Hampshire Route 114 in Sutton.^[19]

A 1901 magazine article described him as follows:

[Pillsbury's] impulse always was: "Act; act now; act effectively; act for the greatest good." He belonged to the type of man who "does things."^[20]

— Horace B. Hudson, The American Monthly Review of Reviews