Nathaniel Gookin Upham (1801 - 1869)
Born at Deerfield (NH); died at Concord (NH).
Lawyer, Superior Court justice, businessman.
Portrait by U.D. Tenney, 1884.
Purchased by State of New Hampshire at 1978
sale of Upham-Walker House furnishings.
Location: Upham-Walker House

Upham was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth College (Class of 1820). He read law and moved to Concord in 1829, where he made a name for himself quickly. He helped organize New Hampshire Savings Bank (1830), and built his substantial new home a year later, in 1831. He helped found the New Hampshire State Hospital (a.k.a. Asylum for the Insane), also in 1830.

In 1833, at thirty-two years of age, Upham was appointed an Associate Justice of State Superior Court. It was a great honor for so young a man. But he continued with Concord projects, and he was named president of the new Mechanics Bank (1834). In 1835 Upham helped organize Concord's South Congregational Church. [When the church burned (1860), Upham was a member of the Building Committee; and he helped pay for an 1868 enlarging of the structure.]

In 1838 Upham sold land (for $1,000) so that the First Episcopal Church might be built (consecrated January 1, 1840). And in 1840 Upham was named a director of the new Concord Railroad. Two year later (1842) Upham was asked to become Superintendent of the Railroad; to do so he would have to give up his judgeship and the practice of law, and he did so. But he became a lawyer again in 1843, and he remained a lawyer until his death (1869).

Judge Upham had so good a reputation that a rival to the Concord Railroad did not hesitate to approach him about a position with their operation. In 1845 Upham became Corporation Clerk for the new Northern Railroad.

James Lyford, editor of the History of Concord (1896), wrote that, "Judge Upham had fortunate political connections, and was not wont to do all his thinking aloud" Ibid., p. 374). Upham was delegate to the 1850/1 state constitutional convention, and Lyford writes, "...it was largely through his [Upham's] skill that the presidential nomination of Franklin Pierce was brought about" (Ibid., p. 972). Pierce later appointed Upham a Commissioner of Claims, and sent him to London to negotiate a settlement with the English.

In 1864 Manchester made a serious effort to move the New Hampshire State Capitol from Concord. Judge Upham helped defeat this effort, and a year later (1865) he represented Concord for one term in the State House of Representatives. That was his last public office; he died in 1869.