Early Years
Charles Wesley Andrews was born on July 27, 1807, in Pittsford, Vermont, the son of Zelotus Andrews and Betsy Andrews. His father died when he was six, and the austere piety of his Congregationalist mother had an important influence on him. Andrews was educated at Castleberry Academy in Rutland and at Middlebury College. There he may have developed symptoms of the tubercular condition he suffered from later, and in June 1827 he moved to Virginia for his health. He served as a tutor for the families of Richard Kidder Meade and William Strother Jones in Frederick County.
Colonization and Antislavery Work
Andrews's reform work illustrates the intersection of evangelicalism and moral issues with nineteenth-century American politics. He regarded slavery as an individual sin and believed that slaveholders could be persuaded to emancipate their slaves once they saw the system as evil. With his fellow evangelical colonizationists Andrews was unshaken by arguments that sending all black Virginians to Africa was a practical impossibility. He was also a leader in the temperance movement and preached against dancing, the theater, and the use of tobacco. The self-discipline that Andrews championed reflected an evangelical world view that accorded well with the Whig Party's campaigns for order and commercial development.
Andrews was Meade's assistant from 1832 to 1835 in Millwood Parish in the part of Frederick County that soon became Clarke County. From 1835 to 1837 he served as general agent for the American Colonization Society, and from 1838 to 1841 he was pastor of Saint Andrew's Parish in Pittsburgh. His health once again failing, Andrews took a yearlong tour of Europe and the Near East, returning to Virginia in 1842 to become rector of Trinity Church in Shepherdstown. He supervised the erection of a new church at the end of the 1850s and later deeded the old church to the local African Methodist Episcopal church. Andrews served as president of the Episcopal church's Convocation of the Valley of Virginia from 1850 to 1875. He was also an officer of the Evangelical Knowledge Society and before the Civil War an editor of the Parish Visitor.
Later Years
The Civil War strained but did not break ties between northern and southern evangelicals in the Episcopal Church. Andrews and others resumed attacks on high church doctrine and ritual after the war. Continued doctrinal disputes over communion and baptism, the hymnal, and temperance led to the division of the church and the formation of the Reformed Episcopal Church in the year of Andrews's death.
Sarah Page Andrews died on January 30, 1863, and Andrews married Nannie Boteler, the widow of Charles Boteler, on March 12, 1865. Andrews died on May 24, 1875, at Fredericksburg while on his way to attend a church convention in Richmond. He was buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Shepherdstown.
Major Works
- Memoir of Mrs. Anne R. Page (1844)
- Historic Notes of Protestant Missions to the Oriental Churches (1866)
- The Relationship of Christianity to Education (1867)
- The Remembrance Which the Christian People Owe to Their Ministers (1868)
- "Baptismal Regeneration": A Review of the Controversy, With Thoughts on the Duty of the Evangelical Portion of the Episcopal Church at the Present Time, Touching the Toleration of Ritualism (1869)
- On the Incompatibility of Theatre-Going and Dancing with Membership in the Christian Church (1871)
- Notes on the State of the Church. Also on the Question of Revision (1874)
Time Line
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July 27, 1807 - C. W. Andrews is born in Pittsford, Vermont.
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June 1827 - C. W. Andrews moves from Vermont to Virginia for his health.
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1832–1835 - C. W. Andrews serves as an assistant Episcopal minister in Millwood Parish in the part of Frederick County that soon would become Clarke County.
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May 20, 1832 - C. W. Andrews is ordained into the Episcopal ministry at Alexandria.
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February 28, 1833 - C. W. Andrews and Sarah Walker Page marry. They will have one son and two daughters.
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1835–1837 - C. W. Andrews serves as general agent for the American Colonization Society.
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1838–1841 - C. W. Andrews serves as Episcopal pastor of Saint Andrew's Parish in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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1842 - C. W. Andrews becomes rector of Trinity Church in Shepherdstown.
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1850–1875 - C. W. Andrews serves as president of the Episcopal church's Convocation of the Valley of Virginia.
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January 30, 1863 - Sarah Page Andrews, the wife of C. W. Andrews, dies.
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March 12, 1865 - C. W. Andrews and Nannie Boteler marry. It is the second marriage for both.
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May 24, 1875 - C. W. Andrews dies at Fredericksburg while on his way to attend a church convention in Richmond. He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Shepherdstown.
References
Further Reading
Cite This Entry
- APA Citation:
Tyler-McGraw, M., & the Dictionary of Virginia Biography. C. W. Andrews (1807–1875). (2019, January 4). In Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved from http://www.EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Andrews_C_W_1807-1875.
- MLA Citation:
Tyler-McGraw, Marie and the Dictionary of Virginia Biography. "C. W. Andrews (1807–1875)." Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 4 Jan. 2019. Web. READ_DATE.
First published: August 13, 2018 | Last modified: January 4, 2019