Erastus E. Andrews

Massachusetts State Senator Erastus Andrews

State Library of Massachusetts

Quick Facts

Significance:

Reverend, Activist, Abolitionist, Community Leader

Place of Birth:

Worcester County, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

About 1806

Place of Death:

Montague, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

March 29, 1873

Place of Burial:

Sunderland, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

North Sunderland Cemetery

According to the membership roster in Austin Bearse's Reminiscences of the Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, Erastus Andrews participated as a member of the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee.

Bostonians founded this iteration of the Vigilance Committee in response to the passage of the new Fugitive Slave Law. This controversial law empowered enslavers and their agents to capture and return freedom seekers to bondage with the full backing of the federal government. It also mandated the assistance of local and state officials and the public at large. Members of the Vigilance Committee provided funds, shelter, transportation, medical attention, and other assistance to freedom seekers escaping enslavement on the Underground Railroad.

Though three men named Erastus Andrews lived in Massachusetts at this time, it seems likely that Reverend Erastus Andrews of Worcester, Massachusetts participated in the Boston Vigilance Committee.¹ Born in Templeton, Massachusetts in 1805, Reverend Erastus Andrews left very few traces of his life in the written record. However his father, Elisha Andrews, served the region as a well-known minister. During the War of 1812, the elder Andrews broke with the Baptist Church and publicly supported the Federalist Party. Opposed to war and a supporter of peace in America, Elisha Andrews suffered for his stance. Seeing his father stand firm in his beliefs may have influenced Erastus to claim his own social justice cause: the abolition of slavery.²

As Erastus Andrews became an adult, his public stance against slavery grew stronger and stronger. In 1838, he joined other Reverends and Ministers in signing a petition that stated:

the system of SLAVERY, as it exists in the United States, being unjust to men and offensive to God, is sinful--that it out to be abolished with the least possible delay--and that all lawful and proper measures should be employed for its removal.³

Joining the Free Soil Party in the 1850s, Reverend Andrews served in the state legislature, first in the House from 1851 to 1852 and then in the Senate in 1855 for Franklin County. The Free Soil Party focused its attention on stopping the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States. Andrews’ affiliation with the Free Soil Party strengthens the possibility of his active membership in the Boston Vigilance Committee. The Vigilance Committee represented a diverse cross section of radical abolitionists and more moderate antislavery activists, including those of the Free Soil movement.

At least one source suggests Andrews opened his home to those seeking freedom from slavery. Writing in "The Underground Railroad in Massachusetts,” Wilbur H. Siebert states that Montague, Massachusetts “had at least three uncompromising abolitionists ---Kendall Abbott, Joshua Marsh, and the Rev. Erastus Andrews...In aiding fugitives he found it unnecessary to practice secrecy.” Writing in 1895, Reverend Andrews’ son, E. Benjamin Andrews, stated that his father participated as a conductor on the Underground Railroad for 35 years. As Sunderland, Massachusetts is only 20 miles from the Vermont border, he likely helped freedom seekers on their way north.⁴

After the U.S. Civil War, Reverend Andrews continued to preach at various Baptist Churches in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In 1872, the Christian Watchman carried a news item about the Reverend, stating, “His life has been such as to gain not only the love of his people, but the confidence of the whole community.”⁵ Reverend Erastus Andrews passed away just one year later on March 29, 1873 and is buried in the North Sunderland Cemetery in Sunderland, Massachusetts.

While Reverend Erastus Andrews of Montague, Massachusetts is a promising candidates for the Erastus Andrews listed in Bearse’s Vigilance Committee roster, we cannot yet confirm this member’s story based on evidence uncovered so far. 

If you are a researcher or descendent of Erastus Andrews or can provide any further details of a different Erastus Andrews who participated in the Vigilance Committee, please reach out to us at [e-mail].

Footnotes:

1. While it is possible that the Erastus Andrews referred to by the Boston Vigilance Committee could be a different individual than profiled here, it is unlikely. One Erastus Andrews lived in Cheshire, Massachusetts and worked as a laborer. The Reverend Erastus Andrews profiled here also has a 15 year old son named Erastus Andrews. While there is an Erasmus Andrews living in Boston in 1850, it is unlikely that his name was altered that many times in multiple publications.
2. William Buell Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit: Baptist. 1860. (United States: R. Carter and brothers, 1860) 272.
3. "From the Franklin Gazette and Mercury," Christian Reflector (Worcester, Massachusetts), May 10, 1838. Accessed September 12, 2021. Genealogy Bank. Keyword: Erastus Andrews.
4. Wilbur H. Siebert, “The Underground Railroad in Massachusetts,” The New England Quarterly 9, no. 3 (1936): 447–67.
5. "Sunny Side," Christian Watchman (Boston, Massachusetts), March 14, 1872. Accessed September 12, 2021. Genealogy Bank. Keyword: Erastus Andrews.