JOHN N. ANDREWS

Sacramento County

Biographies

JOHN N. ANDREWS

John N. Andrews, merchant, postmaster, etc., at Elk Grove, was born in Athol, Worcester County, Massachusetts, September 28, 1829. His father, Collins Andrews, a cabinet-maker by trade, and also a follower of other pursuits, died in Petersham, in his native county, in 1886. He, the father, was born in Pittsford, Rutland County, Vermont, married in Massachusetts, and a few years later returned to Vermont, where he lived twelve years, and then spent the remainder of his life in Massachusetts. Just before the last war an Episcopalian minister, Rev. Charles Westley Andrews, D. D., an uncle of Mr. Andrews, who was a graduate of Middlebury College, Vermont, in 1827, began to admire a Southern lady of Armfield, Clark County, Virginia, named Sarah Walker Page, who was in the possession of $30,000 worth of slaves. They were married on condition that she should liberate these slaves. Some years afterward the direct heirs of the estate brought suit to recover damages on account of such emancipation. At this time the minister was in charge of his church at Shepherdstown, Virginia; he was also an author. The suit was at length carried up to the Supreme Court of the United States, which decided against the claimants. This event is said to have been the exciting cause of the great Rebellion, Collin Andrews was born July 31, 1807, at Pittsford, Vermont. His father was Zelotes Andrews, of Brimfield, Massachusetts, who was born November 25, 1768, and the father of three sons and two daughters. Collins resided at Petersham, Massachusetts, where he was a magistrate and mechanic. He had five sons: Alonzo, Lorenzo, John Nichols, Charles Herman and James Curran. Alonzo and James Curran are not living. Lorenzo is now secretary of the State Board of Health of Iowa, and residing at Des Moines; Charles is living on the home place in Massachusetts. The ancestry of the Andrews family is a noted one, and traces its history back to England. The earliest ancestor now known was William Andrews, a native of Hampsworth, England, and shipped about the 6^th of April, 1635, from Hampton, England, with some fifty-three others, many of whom had wives and children with them. From 1643 he had a family of eight persons, not including servants. In 1639 he was chosen one of twelve to select the seven pillars of the church to order its foundation. He was one of the sixty-three who met in Elder Robert Newman’s barn, which stood on the site of Noah Webster’s place, and who formed the constitution of Quinnipac, or New Haven colony. In 1643 his estate was valued at L150. He was a carpenter by trade, and in 1664 he contracted to build a brick meeting-house for the New Haven colony, and furnish the brick. Some of the tools brought from England were in 1871, and are possibly yet, in the possession of some of his descendants at East Haven, Connecticut. William Andrews was the progenitor of a numerous race of industrious and respectable people, some of whom are highly distinguished. John Nichols Andrews, at the age of nineteen years, left home for California. Leaving New York city April 17, on the steamer Crescent City, within eight days he reached Chagres; waited on the Isthmus nearly a month, and arrived in San Francisco June 13, 1849, on the steamer Oregon, on her second trip. Going to Smith’s Bar, on the American River, he followed mining there for a short time, when the scurvy and Panama fever seized him with considerable violence, and he came to this city and for about two months lay under a tree at the foot of K street, with no relative or acquaintance to attend upon him. On recovery he resumed his trade here,--that of tinsmith. Late in the fall he became sick again, and while confined to his bed the flood came, and he exerted himself sufficiently to get on board the steamer Senator and go to San Francisco, the passage fare being $32; he had but $30. Friends took care of him there, and in a few days he was well. Trying his luck again at mining, on the South Yuba River, he had a little success, and he returned to Sacramento and remained here until 1872, engaged in engraving and other mechanical pursuits. He lost more or less in all the fires and floods occurring during that period: in 1853 he lost everything by flood and fire. In 1872 he obtained an appointment as agent for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company at Elk Grove, and also as postmaster and as agent for the Wells-Fargo Express Company. He has been here ever since, engaged in general merchandise, and still holding official positions, notwithstanding the special efforts of the Democrats against “offensive partisans:” he is a Republican. In 1861 or 1862, during the war, a company of sharpshooters was organized at Sacramento by Colonel Ed R. Hamilton, who was then elected captain, and William M. Siddons, First Lieutenant, and J. N. Andrews, Second Lieutenant. Mr. Andrews was married in Sacramento, May 8, 1867, to Miss Jennie, daughter of Findley McClelland, of Scotch descent, and they have had three children, daughters, of whom only one is living—Nellie Melita, born July 2, 1868. The others were May Elizabeth, who died in Elk Grove at the age of seven years, and one died in infancy.

Transcribed by Karen Pratt.

Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 526-527. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.

Sacramento County Biographies