Andrew was an enslaved African American man. Laura Placida Cotten was presumably Andrew's enslaver, but no records have been located which can confirm this hypothesis. Andrew may have lived with the Cotten family in Raleigh, and in July 1854 Joseph John Williams and his wife Eliza H. Williams (née Thompson) wrote to the Cottens, asking them to have Andrew meet them at the railroad stop in Weldon, North Carolina, likely expecting that Andrew would then travel down with them to Tallahassee, Florida. Any further records about Andrew's life and identity have not been located.