Judge Andrews was born November, 1801, in the quiet New England village of Wallingford, Connecticut. His father was a prominent physician at that place, where he spent a long and useful life in the practice of his profession. He lived to a good old age, a Christian gentleman of the old school.
Although Wallingford is but a short day's travel from Yale, even under the old System of horse and shay, or horse and saddle, young Andrews was sent out of New England to Union College, at Schenectady, New York, where he graduated about the year 1821.
Soon after this time the elder Silliman was at Wallingford, and being in need of an assistant in Chemistry and a private secretary, he offered the position to Mr. Andrews, which was accepted. It seems to have been mutually a happy relation. In his diary, Prof. Silliman says, "he was a young man of a vigorous and active mind, energetic and quick in his decisions and movements, with a warm heart and a genial temper, of the best moral and social habits, a quiet and skillful penman, an agreeable inmate of my family, in which we made him quite at home. We found we had acquired an interesting and valuable friend as well as a good professional assistant. It is true he had, when he came, no experience in practical Chemistry. He had everything to learn, but learned rapidly, as he had real industry and love of knowledge. Before the end of the first term he proved that we had made a happy choice. He continued about four years serving with ability, and the zeal of an affectionate son, without whom I could scarce have retained my place in the College." During this experience in the field of sciences, Mr. Andrews had pursued the study of the law at the Law School of New Haven, with the same ardor, and in 1825, removed to Cleveland, and established himself as an attorney.
In 1828, he married Miss Ursula Allen, of Litchfield, Connecticut, daughter of the late John Allen, a member of Congress from that State, who was also the father of Hon. John W. Allen, of this city. The late Samuel Cowles had preceded Mr. Andrews here in the profession and offered him a partnership. Their competitors were the late Governor Wood and Judge John W. Willey, who were partners, and Judge Starkweather, who still survives. Considering the limited business of the place, which scarcely numbered five hundred inhabitants, the profession was evidently overstocked then, as it has been ever since. Briefless lawyers had, however, a wide field to cultivate outside this county, embracing at least all the counties of the Reserve; with horse and saddle-bags, they followed the Court in its travels, judges and attorneys splashing through the mud on terms of democratic equality.