Hunter was born in 1804 to Col. David Hunter and his wife, the former Elizabeth Pendleton in Martinsburg, then in Berkeley County, Virginia, where his father long served as the county clerk. Although he had three brothers, the family had resources sufficient to pay for his education at Washington Academy further along the National Road in Washington, Pennsylvania, then at Hampden-Sydney College, from which he graduated with highest honors in 1822. He married Elizabeth Ellen Stubblefield and they had a son, Henry Clay Hunter and seven daughters.
Career
Hunter was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1822, and practiced law in what became the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia in his lifetime. His elder brother became a prominent lawyer in Martinsburg, the Berkeley County seat, and Hunter began his practice in Harpers Ferry, then by settled in Charles Town. Beginning in 1840, Andrew Hunter became one of the local attorneys for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and for many years assisted it, first in acquiring the right of way to lay tracks in the county for the connection at Harper's Ferry, although beginning in 1844 Hunter was also a director of the Winchester & Potomac Railroad Company and represented them in their attempts to be taken over by the B&O as it tried to lay track to Wheeling. Hunter was a presidential elector for the Whig party in 1840, but declined nomination for Congress. Jefferson County voters elected Hunter as one of their representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1846, and he also worked for the B&O while in Richmond, but neither he nor his colleague William B. Thompson won re-election. In 1850, Jefferson County voters and those from neighboring Berkeley and Clarke Counties elected Hunter to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850, along with Charles J. Faulkner, William Lucas and Dennis Murphy. Hunter and Lucas were "states rights" men, although in the South Carolina nullification crisis of 1833, Hunter and Thompson had spoken strongly condemning South Carolina's course. Following John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Governor Wise appointed Hunter to assist the local prosecutor, Charles B. Harding. Thus, Hunter drafted the indictment and prosecuted John Brown and his associates for treason against Virginia in 1859, for which all prisoners eventually received the death penalty. During the U.S. Federal Census taken the following year, Hunter owned five slaves: a 36 year old black male, black females aged 35 and 40 and a 6 year old mulatto boy. After Virginia voted for secession and the American Civil War began, Hunter and fellow lawyer Thomas C. Green represented Jefferson County under the Confederate regime in the Virginia House of Delegates during the sessions of 1861/62 and 1862/63, but neither won re-election in 1863. Another local B&O attorney, Thomas Jefferson McKaig, would also side with the Confederacy. After the resignation of banker and Confederate officer Edwin L. Moore, Hunter then became State Senator for his district, by then occupied by Federal troops. Hunter advised Robert E. Lee during the war on civil and military affairs. His youngest brother, Rev. Moses Hoge Hunter served as chaplain of the 3rd Pennsylvania cavalry during that war, and would later edit the memoirs of their cousin, Union General David Hunter. General Hunter in July 1864 ordered subordinates to burn Andrew Hunter's home, and Hunter was then imprisoned for a month without explanation nor charges. After the war, Hunter resumed his legal practice. As perhaps the county's leading attorney, he again often opposed Charles J. Faulkner in court. Beginning in 1865, when West Virginia legislators moved the Jefferson County seat to Shepherdstown from Charles Town, Hunter fought to move the county seat back, and successfully defended a later law moving the county seat back to Charles Town ; Faulkner represented the losing Shepherdstown side. Hunter was later one of the losing attorneys representing Virginia in Virginia v. West Virginia, Virginia's suit to take back the counties of Jefferson and Berkeley which the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1871.
Death
Andrew Hunter died in Charles Town, Jefferson County, West Virginia on November 21, 1888. He is buried with other family members in the cemetery of Zion Episcopal Church in Charles Town. His nephew Robert W. Hunter, also a Confederate officer and delegate, would survive the war and become the Secretary of Virginia Military Records.
