Lewis Feuilleteau Wilson Andrews (September 2, 1802 – March 16, 1875) was an American Southern Universalist minister and a prodigious publisher of denominational and secular newspapers. He was among a handful of Northern Universalist ministers who came to the American South in the early 1800s to assist in the spread of Universalism.
Early life Andrews was born on September 7, 1802, to Rev. John Andrews, a Presbyterian minister, and Elizabeth Calhoun (1776–1844) in North Carolina. In an 1858 biography, Andrews stated that he had seven brothers, however, only four of those brothers have been identified: John Calhoun, Samuel, Benjamin, and Alexander. L.F.W. Andrews grew up in a family committed to the Presbyterian ministry and the publication of denominational newspapers.
The senior Andrews began his lifetime ministerial work serving the Brittain Presbyterian Church in Rutherfordton, North Carolina from 1788 to 1800. In 1802, John Andrews moved to Kentucky, where he was the Woodford County Bethel Church's pastor and the principal of the church's private classical academy. He married Elizabeth Calhoun in 1797.
In 1812, John Andrews moved his family to Chillicothe, Ohio where he embarked on a long newspaper publishing career. In 1814, he published his first periodical, The Weekly Recorder. The paper's mission was to convey "every kind of useful intelligence, to diffuse evangelical and moral truth" on matters of theology, literature, and national affairs. Two of his sons were occasionally engaged in the operation of the paper. From 1819 to 1820, John Andrews partnered with his son, John Calhoun, to publish the paper. In 1820, L.F.W. Andrews, called Lewis by his father, was an agent collecting payments for the paper while attending college in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.
In Chillicothe, the Andrews family experienced a tragedy when Samuel, L.F.W. Andrews's brother, drowned in an accident in 1820. A year later, The Weekly Recorder ceased operation due to mounting financial pressure. Soon after that, Andrews moved his family to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The senior Andrews arrived in Pittsburgh without any expectation of publishing a newspaper again, but at the urging of the Presbyterian Synod of Pittsburgh, he resumed editing a newspaper. On January 25, 1822, he issued the first copy of a weekly newspaper, The Pittsburgh Recorder, devoted "to the great interests of evangelical truth and piety." Andrews continued The Pittsburgh Recorder until December 1827.
In January 1828, he began publishing another paper, The Spectator, with a similar objective to his other papers. He remained the editor of The Spectator for only one year. The senior Andrews, "wishing to retire," transferred ownership to Samuel C. Jennings in November 1828. Jennings, who also had the support of the Presbyterian Synod of Pittsburgh, issued his newspaper under the name the Christian Herald.
At about the same time the senior Andrews was leaving the publishing field, his son, L.F.W. Andrews, began his own publication of the short-lived Masonic Souvenir and Pittsburgh Literary Gazette in June 1828. The paper was a joint effort between the younger Andrews and B. Hutchinson and was devoted to freemasonry, literature, science, and the arts. The paper ceased publication six months later in December due to a lack of subscribers. Andrews, however, continued his lifetime affiliation with Freemasonry.
Education Andrews began his formal education in 1809 at the Bethel Church Academy in Kentucky, run by his father. When his family moved to Ohio, he became an apprentice in his father's publishing business and continued his formal education at the Male Seminary of Chillicothe.
Due to his father's urging that his son follow him into the Presbyterian ministry, Andrews enrolled at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, 25 miles south of Pittsburgh.
The college, founded by John McMillian (1752–1833), a prominent Presbyterian, offered a classical education, including mathematics, grammar, rhetoric, natural history, Greek, and Latin, which prepared young men for the ministry. In 1821, Andrews completed his studies, earning a Bachelor of Arts.
After graduation, Andrews returned home and continued his education, reading history and literature and awaiting a spiritual illumination that would signal his readiness to begin his Presbyterian ministry. After two years, Andrews experienced no spiritual awakening. With the consent of his parents, he then pursued legal studies at the law office of John Hopkins, a distinguished Pittsburgh attorney. Andrews was soon unsettled by the legal profession's ability to expose the darker side of human nature. After three months, he abandoned those studies and came under the tutelage of Dr. James Agnew, a noted physician. Andrews pursued further studies at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, graduating in 1825 with a medical degree.
Andrews then practiced medicine in Cleveland, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He and another physician, Dr. Israel Town, were also proprietors of drug stores. The physicians advertised they would provide professional services at no charge if their patients purchased their prescriptions from their stores.
Marriage and Children In 1827, two years after graduating from medical school, Andrews, 25, married Jane Gray, who was 17. They had eight children.
Following the death of his first wife, Andrews married Mary Elizabeth (née) Smith (1829–1878) in 1867. Smith had been widowed four years earlier following the death of her first husband, Thomas Cato Lamar. This marriage produced only one child.
Early Universalist Ministry and Denomination Newspapers Six years after graduating from medical school, Andrews abandoned his medical career and, like his father, turned to ministry. However, instead of preaching the religion of his youth, Presbyterianism, he turned to Universalism.
Embracing Universalism An explanation of Andrews's conversion appeared in his 1876 obituary published in the Universalist Register. This "conversion story" tells of a chance encounter in 1830 with the veteran Universalist preacher, Rev. J.C. Waldo. Andrews allegedly challenged Waldo to preach on Matthew 25:32, where God separates the sheep and goats to those to be saved and those to be condemned. Andrews's challenge, the obituary explained, was to "scoff" at Waldo's Universalist interpretation. Instead, common to many conversion stories, Waldo's sermon so moved Andrews that he scorned his orthodox beliefs on endless punishment and embraced the eventual happiness of all souls.
Although this conversion story contains some relevant information, it portrays an inaccurate accounting and suffers from crucial omissions. In 1858, Andrews recounted his conversion to Universalism. Understanding his religious background is the first omission to be corrected. He was raised in the conservative orthodoxy of the Presbyterian church: old-fashioned Presbyterian theology, as Andrews described it. That theology drew from the Calvinist tenets of pre-destination, the election of those to be saved and those to be condemned. Andrews could no longer accept this belief of his upbringing. He rejected the idea of endless torment for himself and others. Although Presbyterian by birth and education, he found himself an infidel within his childhood faith. For years, he struggled with this internal conflict until, as he observed, "providentially," he had his chance encounter with Rev. Waldo in Augusta, Kentucky. Andrews did not come to "scoff," but to seek affirmation of the doctrine of the "restitution of all things."
Letters between Father and Son In May 1831, Andrews and his father exchanged letters regarding Andrews's embrace of Universalism. The letters revealed a poignant effort by a father to save his son from what he thought was a "labyrinth of destructive error." Fatherly concern was expressed when the senior Andrews wrote:
As a Calvinist Presbyterian minister, his father also admonished his son.
The resolve of the young Andrews was equally evident, as he tossed aside the previous beliefs of his youth in the Trinity, original sin, the total depravity of humankind, and a sovereign God's predestination of souls, some to everlasting bliss and others to eternal damnation. L.F.W. questioned the sovereign power of this God.
The young Andrews then raised this final point on the intent and power of God.
The implication of the observation would not have been lost on his father. A God that "can save all men but will not" is the Presbyterian Calvinist God of his father. The God that "will save all men but cannot" is the God of the Arminians. The God that can "save all men" and "will save all men" is the God of Universalism.
Ordination Fellow Universalists quickly embraced Andrews. The June 1831 Cincinnati convention of the Western Union Association of Universalists ordained him as a Universalist minister. His upbringing by a minister and his ministerial education at Jefferson College most likely supported the decision to grant him a letter of ordination without additional training.
Andrews approached his new calling as a Universalist minister with frenetic zeal. Now living in Hartford, Connecticut, he went on a preaching tour in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, with several of his sermons printed in denominational newspapers.
Religious Inquirer Within eight months of his ordination, Andrews returned to an endeavor formed in his youth, the newspaper business. Though trained as a minister, one could make an argument that newspaper publishing was Andrews' true calling, as, over his lifetime, he would edit or own more than a dozen newspapers.
In February 1832, Binea Sperry, the new owner of the Religious Inquirer, headquartered in Hartford, appointed Andrews as the head of the paper's editorial department, a prestigious appointment from a respected Universalist paper that began publication in 1821. Rev. Menzies Rayner, the outgoing editor, endorsed the appointment, stating, "Though he has not been a member of our communion long, Dr. A. is very favorably known to the Universalist public, as a gentleman of talents and a minister sound in faith." However, Andrews left his position within ten weeks, citing "pecuniary considerations."
Gospel Witness In July 1832, three months after his departure from the Religious Inquirer, Andrews was again engaged in the newspaper business with his own paper named the Gospel Witness. Also published in Hartford, the influential editor of the Boston-based Trumpet and Universalist Magazine, Thomas Whittemore, cast dispersions on Andrews's paper, questioning the "public good" of publishing a second paper alongside the Religious Inquirer in Hartford.
Whether due to the headwinds created by Whittemore or other obstacles Andrews encountered, within three months, he abandoned his plans to publish the Gospel Witness as a standalone paper. Rather, the Gospel Witness would become a jointly published paper with The Herald of Freedom, a Universalist-leaning paper owned by P.T. Barnum before his career as a showman. Barnum, serving a 60-day prison term on his conviction on a libel charge, requested Andrews's assistance with his paper. The Herald of Freedom and Gospel Witness, published in Bethel, Connecticut, continued as a joint paper until the paper moved to Danbury, Connecticut in 1833.
Preaching Andrews did not retreat from preaching while engaged or between his publishing efforts. He served the Glastonbury, Connecticut society as a quarter-time minister. At the 1832 Southern Association of Universalists convention held in Stafford, Connecticut, he accepted an appointment to the Association's committee on Fellowship and Ordination. Later in 1832, he attended the convention of the Philadelphia Association of Universalists held in Hightstown, New Jersey. His attendance at this convention may have been his bid to secure his first Universalist pastorate.