Loring Andrews

Loring Andrews was a printer and publisher who was listed as the head of a first ward household on the Albany census in 1800. He was born about 1767 and no one in that household was born prior to 1756. He was the fourth son of farmer Joseph Andrews and his wife Hannah Richmond of Hingham, Massachusetts.

In April 1789, he co-authored an essay entitled "Completion of the Government," which was published in the Boston paper The Herald of Freedom, of which he was a publisher.

In 1792, he was a postmaster in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and courting Frances, the fourteen-year-old daughter of Theodore Sedgwick. For five years, she was "enraptured" by Andrews. However, her father disapproved and instead arranged for her to be married to Dr.Thaddeus Pomeroy, a Harvard-educated physician who had opened a drug store in Albany. Perhaps that relationship had some relation to Andrews moving to Albany himself.

After settling in Albany, he seems to have been involved in the printing of political tracts - especially in relation to the Federalist party. HIs Albany imprints under the name of "Loring, Andrews & Company" began to appear in 1798. An example of his commentary appeared in the Albany Centinel in December 1798. Perhaps previously, he had been part of "Thomas, Andrews, and Penniman," proprietors of a printery at 45 State Street in Albany.

He seems to have married (but not to Frances Sedgewick) and to have raised a family (some born in Albany about 1800) who became successful beyond Albany.

In 1799, his house and lot in the first ward were valued modestly on the Albany assessment roll. His lot on Hudson Street was shown on a property map dated 1800.

In 1800, he was identified as the "printer to the State."

After less than a decade in Albany, Loring Andrews removed to Charleston, South Carolina where he was the publisher of The Courier in 1803. He left the paper in 1805 and prepared to return to the North. However, he became ill and died in October 1805 at the age of thirty-eight.

Sources: The life of Loring Andrews is CAP biography number 7140. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources. Many of his descendants were buried in Brooklyn including a "Loring Andrews" (1799-1875). Perhaps he was the kinsman of contemporary Albany resident and bookbinder John Andrews. A number of items written by and to Loring Andrews from Stockbridge and Albany during his lifetime are part of the "Norton Andrews Papers" collection at Harvard University.

He may have been the Loring Andrews of Boston who founded The Berkshire Star in 1783.