John Albion Andrew
John Albion Andrew was born on May 31, 1818, in Windham in present-day Maine to Jonathan and Nancy Andrew. His father was a merchant, and his mother worked as a teacher at Fryeburg Academy. His mother died in 1832. He enrolled at Bowdoin College in 1833, and he graduated four years later. He then moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where he earned a living as a lawyer.
He supported the Whig Party and the antislavery movement. He joined Boston’s first vigilance committee, an organization dedicated to helping escaped slaves. He met Eliza Jane Hersey at an antislavery fair in 1847, and the couple got married on December 24, 1848. They had four children: John, born around 1850; Elizabeth, born around 1852; Edith, born around 1854; and Henry, born around 1858. He supported the Free Soil Party in 1848, and he fiercely opposed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
He joined the Republican Party in the mid-1850s. He was elected to the state legislature in 1857, and he earned a reputation as a fierce critic of slavery. In 1858, he became chair of the Republican State Convention. Then, in 1860, he was elected governor of Massachusetts.
Andrew took office in January 1861 and immediately began preparing the state for war. He maintained a staunch abolitionist perspective on the Civil War, framing the conflict as a moral struggle against slavery. He strongly supported emancipation and the enlistment of Black soldiers.
By the end of the war, however, Andrew’s politics had moderated considerably. He supported President Andrew Johnson’s lenient plan for Reconstruction, and he did not view Black suffrage as an essential component of Reconstruction. He retired from political office in January 1866 and resumed his law practice. He died of apoplexy in Boston on October 30, 1867.
Image: John A. Andrew (courtesy Wikicommons)
DATABASE CONTENT
| (675) | Andrew, John Albion | 1818-05-31 | 1867-10-30 |
- Conflict Side: Union
- Role: Civilian
- Rank in:
- Rank out:
- Rank highest:
- Gender: Male
- Race: White
Documents - Records: 14
- (11059) [recipient] ~ Francis J. Parker to John A. Andrew, 7 December 1860
- (11103) [writer] ~ John A. Andrew to Francis J. Parker, 5 January 1861
- (11061) [recipient] ~ Francis J. Parker to John A. Andrew, 27 June 1861
- (4162) [recipient] ~ Francis J. Parker to John A. Andrew, 21 September 1861
- (12977) [recipient] ~ Francis J. Parker to John A. Andrew, 23 November 1861
- (11107) [writer] ~ John A. Andrew to Francis J. Parker, 27 November 1861
- (11063) [recipient] ~ Francis J. Parker to John A. Andrew, 29 November 1861
- (12993) [writer] ~ John A. Andrew to Francis J. Parker, 1 August 1862
- (1784) [writer] ~ John A. Andrew to Jacob P. Gould, 24 April 1863
- (14653) [recipient] ~ Francis J. Parker to John A. Andrew, 14 May 1863
- (13351) [recipient] ~ Walter H. Wild to John A. Andrew, 3 June 1863
- (14667) [writer] ~ John A. Andrew to Francis J. Parker, 14 December 1863
- (14671) [writer] ~ John A. Andrew to Francis J. Parker, 20 January 1864
- (14705) [writer] ~ John A. Andrew to Francis J. Parker, 17 February 1866
Places - Records: 2
Groups - Records: 3
SOURCES
1860 United States Federal Census, available from Ancestry.com; Massachusetts Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988, available from Ancestry.com; Massachusetts Marriage Records, 1840-1915, available from Ancestry.com; “John Albion Andrew” Wikipedia profile, available from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Albion_Andrew
