North Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 27,202 at the 2000 census. North Andover is the nominal home of Merrimack College, a private, Catholic four-year college (though the college has expanded into Andover as well). From 1646 to her death in 1672, North Andover was the home of America's first published poet, Anne Dudley Bradstreet and her family.