George Hamilton

Who was George Hamilton?

George Hamilton was a Canadian merchant and politician, who founded the city of Hamilton, Ontario.

Hamilton was born on October 1788 in Queenston Heights. The son of wealthy and influential Queenston merchant Robert Hamilton, who later held important government offices, being a member of the Legislative Council and lieutenant of the County of Lincoln, and son of Catherine Askin, Hamilton was educated in Edinburgh, Scotland and appears to have possessed a keen mind for business and letters. The Scottish schooling of the era would have exposed him to moral philosophy and what later became the separate discipline of economics. It is likely that his education fostered scepticism as well as a commitment to freedom of religion and the right to hold dissenting opinions, attitudes that would surface in his political career. He married Maria Lavinia Jarvis in 1811.

Hamilton also served during the War of 1812, where he held the rank of captain with the Niagara Light Dragoons, participating in the capture of Detroit and the Battle of Queenston Heights and Lundy's Lane. During 1814, British troops billeted at his Queenston establishment burned the property. This loss, combined with a familiarity with the Head of the Lake acquired during the war when Burlington Heights was heavily garrisoned, may have prompted George Hamilton's purchase of 257 acres of Barton Township from James Durand, in January 1815. Well placed and shrewd, Hamilton likely knew of prewar discussions about creating a new administrative district with a judicial centre. Within a year of his land purchase, Hamilton reached agreement with the owner of adjacent property to the north, Nathaniel Hughson, on a scheme which they calculated would increase the possibility of having the court-house and jail for the new district located on Hamilton lands, to the benefit of the values of both men's property. Together they empowered James Durand to lobby at the House of Assembly for the Hamilton townsite and to act as an agent selling town lots. The instructions coincided with the very week that the assembly and Legislative Council deliberated on the formation of the new district and the designation of a district town; the act was passed on 22 March 1816. The precise manoevres cannot be documented, but there is little doubt that the origins of the Hamilton town site, and its location back from the waterfront, derived from a complicated private affair involving Messrs. Hamilton, Hughson, and Durand. The new town was to become the capital of the new Gore District. Hamilton provided land for a courthouse and jail. The police village of Hamilton was incorporated in 1833.