W. W. Hiltz

Who was W. W. Hiltz?

William Wesley 'Bill' Hiltz was Mayor of Toronto from January 1924 – January 1925. During his term, he introduced time clocks for Toronto city workers. He had a son and grandson, with the same names.

Hiltz and his son Bill were the superintendents at Danforth Methodist Church where they presided over the largest Methodist Sunday School in Canada.

Prior to becoming mayor, Hiltz was Chairman of the Toronto Board of Education. He changed the spelling of his name from "S" to "Z" for personal reasons soon before becoming Mayor.

He began his career as a high school teacher transitioning to a building contractor, real estate developer and politician. During this transition, he had been known to take his students out to the construction sites to dig foundations by shovel. It was the time before the proliferation of digging machinery. He accumulated real estate properties to the extent that he became the second highest taxpayer in Toronto metro. The highest taxpayer Timothy Eaton, the founder of Eaton Department Stores, and the two were friends.

Originally from Georgetown, Ontario, Mayor Hiltz died in 1936 at age 63.

Hiltz descended from the Hilts families that immigrated to the new world around 1710 presumably from the Palatinate region of Germany because of the wars and famine. The family farmed in the Mohawk Valley in western New York on the Burnetsfield Patent. During the American Revolution in 1779, Joseph Hilts was brought as a small child by his grandfather, Joseph Petrie, who was forced to flee to the Niagara Region, Clinton and Louth Twp. of Ontario, Canada. In Ontario, Joseph Hilts' sons, received land grants in Esquesing and Erin Townships with Esquesing Township going to William Hilts. But, his son, Edward Thompson Hilts settled in Erin Township where his son mayor William W. Hiltz was born, homesteaded, and raised. But, William W. Hiltz spent most of his adult life near his wife's parents near Grimsby, Ontario.