Andrew B. Paris, attorney, San Bernardino, was born in Virginia, in 1839, and was educated in the Virginia Military Institute, at which he was graduated in 1860. Upon the breaking out of the war he enlisted in the Confederate army, served four years, rose to the rank of Colonel, and at the close of hostilities was chief of artillery of General Hoke’s division of General Joseph E. Johnston’s army. After the war closed he studied law in the University of Virginia, and was admitted to the bar in 1866. Locating in Charlotte County, Virginia, he practiced his profession till 1873.
In 1874 he came to California and settled in San Bernardino, and has been actively and prominently connected with the bar of the county ever since. Colonel Paris has been associated as a law partner with Henry Goodcell and Judge John L. Campbell respectively, and now has as partner Dwight W. Fox, a promising young attorney. Colonel Paris’s special strength at the bar lies in the trial of criminal causes, in which he is very successful, being one of the ablest advocates in this part of the State. He has been connected on one side or the other with many of the most celebrated criminal cases before the courts of this county. In 1886 he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of San Bernardino County for two years, and was recognized as one of the most efficient prosecutors who has ever filled that office. As a local orator Colonel Paris is very popular, and his services are usually in demand on all occasions where terse, pithy speeches are in order.
On August 10, 1889, he was joined in marriage with the daughter of Colonel Larkin Smith, of Virginia, an estimable lady whom he had known from childhood. Colonel Paris is financially interested with several local corporations.