Andrew Anderson (St. Augustine, Florida)

His father arrived in St. Augustine in 1829 aboard the schooner General Jackson, along with his mother Mary and two sisters, Hannah and Emily.

He was elected head of the local temperance society in 1830, St. Augustine alderman in 1833 and 1834, justice of the peace and elder of the Presbyterian Church in 1839.

In the same year his father laid the cornerstone for what would eventually become the Markland Mansion on the plantation he owned on land between the San Sebastian River and Maria Sanchez Creek.

Soon after beginning construction on Markland his father perished in a yellow fever outbreak which had struck St. Augustine.

He didn't serve in the military in the American Civil War, but did pay for a substitute in the St. Augustine Blues (Third Florida Inf., Co. B) as was accepted custom at the time.

After returning to St. Augustine, Anderson immersed himself in the civic affairs of the city including sitting on the board that created the Peabody Free School, the local Republican Party Secretary, alderman on the St. Augustine City Council and St. Johns County Commissioner as well as serving in the board of the Buckingham Smith Benevolent Association.

Anderson married Mary Elizabeth Smethurst, a woman 24 years his junior, at Trinity Episcopal Church, St. Augustine on January 29, 1895.