D.P. Upham Project Page 1

Upham's Background

Daniel Phillips Upham (1832-1882) was originally born and raised in Dudley, Massachusetts. He was educated in the public schools of that town. On February 15, 1860, Upham married Elizabeth "Lizzie" Nash. Childless, the couple eventually adopted a girl named Isabel. Judging from the way Upham conducted busines, you would have thought that he was from Illinois. He certainly did things the Chicago Way.

In case you're wondering just what that means, let's take a page from the 1960's sitcom The Patty Duke Show. In one episode, Patty Duke announced at the dinner table that she had just decided to run for student government president. This prompted her brother to ask her, "if you get elected, can I have the graft?"

During the Civil War, Upham was a business associate of Alexander Shaler in New York City. After Shaler entered the Union Army, Upham bought his building material business. Upham fared poorly in that business and by 1865, he was near bankruptcy. It was at that point that Shaler, now a general in the Union Army, invited Upham to come down to Arkansas where Shaler's troops were stationed.

By accepting General Shaler's invitation, Upham joined the ranks of the kind of people who native white Southerners applied the derogatory term "carpetbaggers" to.

Here's one such carpetbagger: Stereotypical Carpetbagger Carpetbagger