English-born architect, he emigrated to the USA in 1829, and settled in Boston, Mass., where he established a practice in 1834. His earliest works were the serene and pleasing Greek Revival houses in Bangor, Me. (1833–6), and a Gothic Revival house in Gardiner, Me. (1835), but he is remembered primarily as a church-architect and as a Gothic Revivalist. His masterpiece was the Second Pointed Trinity Church, New York (1841–6), which shows the influence of A. W. N. Pugin (it resembles the church depicted in Plate H of The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841)), and gained critical acclaim. St Mary's, Burlington, NJ (1846), with its handsome crossing-tower and broach-spire, was derived from the English medieval Church of St John the Baptist, Shottesbrooke, Berkshire, illustrations of which, from drawings by Butterfield, had been published by the Oxford Society for Promoting the Study of Gothic Architecture (later called the Oxford Architectural Society). Upjohn's Trinity Chapel, New York (1846), was also Anglo-Gothic in style.
Upjohn produced some buildings in the Romanesque style, e.g. the Church of the Pilgrims, Brooklyn, New York (1844–6), Bowdoin College Chapel and Library, Brunswick, Me. (1845–55), and St Paul's Church, Baltimore, Md. (1854–6), the last more like a true Rundbogenstil building based on Lombardic exemplars. He built an enormous number of churches, many of some distinction, and also designed other building types, a fact often obscured by his reputation as a church-architect. He published Upjohn's Rural Architecture in 1852 which shows something of his grasp of composition and style. He was first President of the American Institute of Architects which he helped to found.
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