1802–78, American architect, b. England. He came to the United States in 1829. A skilled cabinetmaker and draftsman, he lived first in Manlius, N.Y., and then in New Bedford, Mass., where he set himself up as an architect. His first commissions were private houses in Bangor, Maine (1833–36). He had executed St. John’s Church, Bangor (1836–39), and several smaller commissions when in 1839 he was engaged to rebuild Trinity Church, New York City. Moving to New York, he established an office there. The new Trinity Church (1846) was carefully modeled on English examples and inaugurated a new phase in the Gothic revival. Upjohn designed the old St. Thomas’s Church in New York City (later burned), several churches in Brooklyn, the chapel of Bowdoin College, smaller Gothic churches, and many residences. He was a founder of the American Institute of Architects and its first president (1857–76). His son, Richard Michell Upjohn, 1828–1903, architect of the Connecticut State Capitol, was associated with his father.
See E. M. Upjohn, Richard Upjohn, Architect and Churchman (1939).
