John A. Andrew was born in Windham, May, 1818, and was fitted for college at Gorham Academy, under Rev. Reuben Nason. He graduated at Bowdoin College, in the class of 1837, pursued legal studies in the office of the late H.W. Fuller, Esq., of Boston, and was admitted to the Suffolk Bar. His college life was "the flow of generous impulses and noble purposes, rather than the display of brilliant talents and extraordinary scholarship. Indeed, as may be said of many others, his public career developed more shining qualities and higher traits of genius than his early friends anticipated." As is well known, his is a conspicuous name in the political annals of Massachusetts. In 1859 he was in the lower house of its Legislature, and in 1860 was elected Governor of the State at a critical emergency in State and Nation, and through his uncommon ability and fitness, by general consent, acquired the title of "the great war governor." On retiring from office, in 1866, he declined various honorable and lucrative positions, resuming the practice of law, which became extensive and remunerative. On the evening of the 30th of October, 1867, he was seized with apoplexy while sitting with his family, and survived but a few hours. His remains were interred in Hingham. A statue of marble has been placed in the State House at Boston. A writer in the Portland Transcript recurs to an early reminiscence of Gov. Andrew. "It was the custom of the graduating members," he writes, "in our day, at Bowdoin, to pass round the college album for autographs, not confining the mission exclusively to those of the same class, but extending it to other circles ad libitum. Among the only relics left by the ravages of two destructive conflagrations in Portland is one of these albums, in which this early friend thus autographs his genial character, no less than his penmanship."

John Albion Andrew
—an extensive biographical sketch—

John Albion Andrew
Wikipedia

Governor John Andrew Takes Things in Hand

Edward Waldo Emerson, The Early Years of the Saturday Club 1855-1870 358 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1918)

Correspondence

Writings

Bibliography