Upjohn, Richard | Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada

UPJOHN, Richard (1802-1878) of New York City was among the most talented ecclesiastical architects in the United States during the nineteenth century. Born at Shaftesbury, England on 22 January 1802 he served an apprenticeship to a builder and cabinet maker there and emigrated to New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1829. In 1833 he moved to Boston and it was here that he developed designs for St. John's Church, Bangor, Maine (1835-36) the first of what was to become a series of important landmarks of the American Gothic Revival style. His best known ecclesiastical design is undoubtedly that for Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall Street, New York City (1841-46), a commission which justly precipitated his emergence as one of the leading figures of American architecture by 1850. In Canada, Upjohn designed an elaborate Italianate mansion and estate for Samuel Zimmerman, Ferry Street at Clifton Hill, NIAGARA FALLS, ONT., (1856; demol. 1938; gatehouses demol. 1955; 1965). This magnificent stone residence, with its Florentine arcades and balcony was a surprisingly mature and sophisticated work for Canada West when it was completed. The original drawings for the house survive and can be found in the Upjohn Collection, Avery Architectural Library, Columbia University, New York. This collection also contains a full set of drawings for a two storey Villa, in the Italianate style, for a 'Mr. Macklem', at CHIPPAWA, ONT., (1850). Both clients may have known of the work of Upjohn across the Niagara River in Buffalo, New York where he had designed St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, Church Street, in 1849. His only other work in Canada is an undated design of a residence for the Hon. Charles Fisher, Brunswick Street near St. John Street, FREDERICTON, N.B., (c. 1850; burned 1886) for which drawings survive in the Upjohn Collection. Fisher was a prominent politician who served as Premier of New Brunswick from 1854 until 1861. Upjohn was the author of Rural Architecture (1852), an influential book which contained many of his designs for 'country churches and rural houses'. A monograph and memoir of his life entitled Richard Upjohn - Architect and Churchman, written by a descendant Everard M. Upjohn, was published in 1939. He died in New York City on 16 August 1878 (obituary in the New York Times, 18 Aug. 1878, 7; biography and list of works in the MacMillan Encyclopedia of Architects, 1982, iv, 236-44; H. Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects, 1956, 611-12)