American organizer, born in Franklin County, NC, on the 26th of March 1822. He was brought up on a farm, failed in the hotel business at Raleigh, was for thirteen years master mechanic on the Mine Hill and Schuykill Haven railroad and lost all his savings in an oil investment in 1864. In 1868, while employed in the machine-shops of the Atlantic and Great Western railroad, at Meadville, PA, he founded the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and organized the first lodge, October 27, 1868. The order has since spread throughout the United States and Canada, and in 1894 had a membership of more than 328,755, and disbursed in benefits, during the fiscal year, $6,479,175. Upchurch traveled much in the interest of the society established by him, and during the later years of his life resided at Steelville, MO, where he died on the 18th of January 1887.
