Landaff Watson Andrews

Landaff Watson Andrews (February 12, 1803 – December 23, 1888) was a United States Representative from Kentucky and a prominent nineteenth-century lawyer, legislator, and jurist. Born in Flemingsburg, Fleming County, Kentucky, he came of age in the early years of the Commonwealth’s statehood and would spend virtually his entire life and professional career in his native community. He was also a slave owner, a fact that placed him within the prevailing social and economic order of antebellum Kentucky.

Andrews pursued a formal legal education at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, one of the leading institutions of higher learning in the West at the time. He graduated from the law department in 1826 and was admitted to the bar that same year. Immediately after his admission, he commenced the practice of law in Flemingsburg, establishing himself as an attorney in the county seat of Fleming County and laying the foundation for a long career in public service and the law.

Early in his career, Andrews entered local public office. He served as prosecuting attorney of Fleming County from 1829 to 1839, a decade-long tenure in which he was responsible for representing the Commonwealth in criminal matters. During this period he also began his legislative career at the state level, serving as a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from 1834 to 1838. His work in the state legislature coincided with a time of significant political realignment and economic debate in Kentucky and the nation, and it helped to establish his reputation as a Whig politician.

As a member of the Whig Party representing Kentucky, Andrews contributed to the legislative process during two terms in the United States House of Representatives. He was elected as a Whig to the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Congresses and served from March 4, 1839, to March 3, 1843. His service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history marked by disputes over banking, tariffs, and westward expansion. In Washington he participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of his Kentucky constituents, but he was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1842 to the Twenty-eighth Congress, which ended his federal legislative service.

After his congressional service, Andrews returned to Kentucky politics. In the 1850s, amid the rise of nativist sentiment, he was elected to the Kentucky Senate in 1857 as a Know Nothing candidate, reflecting the shifting party alignments of the era. With the coming of the Civil War, he again entered the lower house of the state legislature, being elected a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1861. He served there until 1862, when he resigned his seat, during a period when Kentucky was deeply divided but remained in the Union.

Following his resignation from the legislature, Andrews moved into the judiciary. He served as judge of the circuit court from 1862 to 1868, presiding over civil and criminal matters in a time of war and Reconstruction, when Kentucky, like much of the South and border states, was grappling with the legal and social consequences of the conflict and emancipation. After completing his judicial service, he resumed the practice of law in Flemingsburg, continuing his long association with the local bar and public affairs.

Andrews spent his later years in Flemingsburg, where he remained an established figure in the community until his death. He died there on December 23, 1888; his year of death is often given erroneously as 1887. He was interred in Fleming County Cemetery. His career, spanning roles as prosecuting attorney, state legislator, United States Representative, state senator, and circuit court judge, reflected the political and legal currents of nineteenth-century Kentucky and the broader United States.