Joseph Mayo Atkinson (1820–1891) was a prominent Presbyterian clergyman who served for many years as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, and later led other congregations in the state after completing his theological education at Princeton Seminary. He was born in Mansfield, Virginia, one of eleven children in a family notable for producing several ministers, and was known for his dedicated pastoral work and published religious writings, including The True Path. Atkinson remained active in ministry nearly half a century until his death in Warrenton, North Carolina, in 1891.