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.

Judge Andrews gave immediate promise of celebrity as an advocate. With a sensitive and nervous temperament, he entered sympathetically into the case of his client, making it his own. He possessed a brilliant readiness of manner, full of skillful thrusts, hits, and witticisms. His correct New England morals were not deteriorated by contact with the more loose codes of a new western town. In his clear and earnest voice there was that magnetic influence, which is necessary to complete the style of any orator, and which is a gift solely of nature. As a technical pleader, though he stood high, there were others upon the circuit equally gifted. But in a cause where his convictions of justice and of legal right were fixed, there was not among his contemporaries, in the courts of this State, an advocate, whose efforts were so nearly irresistible before a jury. He has command of sarcasm and invective, without coarseness. He attacks oppression, meanness and fraud as if they were offences not only against the public, but against himself. He has never strayed from the profession to engage in any speculations or occupations to divert his thoughts from pure law, except for two years from 1840, while he held a seat in Congress. In 1848, the Legislature elected him judge of the Superior Court of Cuyahoga county, a place he continued to hold till the Court was abolished. As a judge he was eminently successful, his decisions having been overruled by higher courts only in a single instance, and that owing to a clerical mistake. In politics he was evidently not at home. After leaving the bench, Judge Andrews returned to the practice, but has been chiefly employed as associate counsel, occasionally addressing juries on important cases.

As an advocate, Judge Andrews, during his whole professional career, has been in the very foremost rank, with a reputation confined neither to county, or even State lines. Distinguished for clear conceptions of legal principles, and their varied relations to practical life, he has also shown rare ability in judging of mixed questions of law and fact. His legal opinions, therefore, have ever been held in the highest esteem.

But as jury lawyer, Judge Andrews has achieved successes so remarkable as to have secured a permanent place in the traditions of the bar, and the history of judicial proceedings in Northern Ohio. The older lawyers have vivid recollections of a multitude of cases when he was in full practice, and in his prime, in which his ready insight into character--his power to sift testimony and bring into clear relief the lines of truth involved in complicated causes--his ability to state the legal principles so that the jury could intelligently apply them to the facts--his humor--his pure wit--his pathos, at times bringing unfeigned tears to the eyes of both judge and jurors--his burning scorn of fraud--and his appeal on behalf of what he believed to be right, so impetuous with enthusiasm, so condensed and incisive in expression, and so felicitous in illustration, as to be well nigh irresistible.

Yet, highly as Judge Andrews has adorned his profession, it is simply justice to say in conclusion, that his unblemished character in every relation has adorned his manhood. He has been far more than a mere lawyer. With a keen relish for historical and philosophical inquiry--a wide acquaintance with literature, and an earnest sympathy with the advanced lines of thought in the present age, his life has also been practically subordinated to the faultless morality of Christianity. A community is truly enriched, when it possesses, and can present to its younger members, such shining instances of success in honorable endeavor, and sterling excellence in character and example.