This young man died in Tennessee when 18 years of age, shortly before the family moved to Texas. No information relative to the manner of his death, except that it was sudden and tragic, was available in any family record.

In a letter written at Plano, Texas, May 2, 1858, and addressed to A. R. (Alvin Rufus) Andrews, young Varney's brother, L. W. Oglesby, a relative by marriage of Burnetta Fowler Andrews, said this:

"I have received two letters from home since I left, one from Martha (his wife, Martha Fowler) stating the sudden and unfortunate death of your Brother Varney, which mortified my feelings very much, for Varney was a youth that I thought a great deal of. His kind and affectionate manner was the theme of all who knew him, and to be taken from his earthly scenes so young and so promising is a sad and bereaving calamity upon his Father and Mother, Sisters and Brothers."

In this letter, L. W. Oglesby also stated that in another letter from his wife Martha, dated April 11, 1858, he learned that Edwin Jones Andrews and his wife Burnetta Fowler Andrews, with their family had departed Celina, Tennessee, on April 8, 1858, on the historic move to Texas. Another portion of the letter said: "I have seen your Uncle Rice Maxey, and Samuel Bell Maxey. They were well pleased and both well."

Varney Andrews
in the 1850 United States Federal Census

Name:Varney Andrew
[Varney Andrews]
Age: 10
Birth Year: abt 1840
Birthplace: Tennessee
Home in 1850: District 6, Jackson, Tennessee, USA
Gender: Male
Family Number: 735
Household Members:
Name Age
Varna Andrew 56
Mary Andrew 47
Rufus Andrew 16
Robert Andrew 14
Nancy Andrew 12
Varney Andrew 10
James Andrew 8
Mary Andrew 6
Mark Andrew 5
Mary A Maxery 24
Francis Fowler 25
Nelson Fowler 35
Nancy Brown 23
Sally Brown 18
H P Brown 11


The Saga of Coe Ridge: A study in Oral History
By William Lynwood Montell
The University of Tennessee Press
Prologue: Lost Pages of History
Page 31

Before the Civil War, Sperry Smith was one of the most prominent slaveholders in Turkey Neck Bend... Smith's wife had a sister, name unknown, who married into the white Andrews family of local history fame. This Andrews family owned a group of slaves who assumed the family name after manumission (16) and who then married into the Coe Negro clan on Coe Ridge. In addition to the intermarriage of families that had previously owned some of the Coe Ridge progenitors, Mrs. Andrews and Mrs Smith had a brother who held a portion of the Coe slaves at the time the Civil War erupted. He was Dr. Samuel Moore, a general physician whose office was at Black's Ferry in Monroe County.

16. Almost everyone questioned claimed that the Andrews family owned many slaves. The 1860 Census for Monroe County, KY shows that William Andrews owned 10 slaves, while Varney F. Andrews owned four.