Andrew J. Peters
American politician from Massachusetts (1872-1938)
Andrew James Peters (April 3, 1872 – June 26, 1938) was an American attorney and Democratic Party politician who was the mayor of Boston from 1918 and represented the city in the Massachusetts Senate and United States House of Representatives. He also served as assistant secretary of the United States Treasury during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. After his political career, he was embroiled in scandal by the 1931 drowning death of Starr Faithfull when her diaries alleged a man named AJP had serially raped her as a young child; Peters denied the allegations through his attorney but was suspected of involvement in her drowning, leading to a series of nervous breakdowns and the end of his public career.
Early years
Andrew James Peters was born in West Roxbury, Massachusetts on April 3, 1872. His family had roots in colonial Massachusetts, where the first Andrew Peters arrived in 1657. Peters graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor of arts degree in 1895 and Harvard Law School with a bachelor of laws degree in 1898.
Political career
Peters served two terms in the Massachusetts State Senate (1904, 1905). In 1906, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served from 1907 to 1914.
In 1914, Peters was appointed to be assistant secretary of the Treasury under William Gibbs McAdoo in the first administration of President Woodrow Wilson. He served there until 1918, when he began his term as Mayor of Boston, having defeated incumbent James Michael Curley in the 1917 mayoral election.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q505489. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1872, 1938, 1918 and 1931.
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This entry incorporates text from “Andrew J. Peters” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.