William Basil Hamilton (Nov. 19, 1812 - Oct. 28, 1891) was appointed mayor of Collingwood when the town was incorporated on Jan. 1, 1858. He also served as the town's post master for 22 years, starting in 1861, and built the first post office at 139 Hurontario Street.
Early life
Hamilton was born in Charleston, County of Cornwall, England, the son of Capt. James Matthew Hamilton and Louisa Jupp. His father had previously served in Canada as a member of the Fifth Regiment of Foot from July, 1787 until October, 1797, stationed at Mackinaw, Detroit, and Fort Niagara . Capt. Hamilton retired from the army and the family moved to Cornwall, where he owned a shipping business that transported copper ore, china clay, lumber, and coal.
Hamilton and one brother went to boarding school in London until the failure of some of his father's business interests, and the family moved to St. Austell, then Bodmin, on the south coast of England. It was while living at Plymouth, after one daughter, Mary, died of typhus, that Capt. Hamilton started to consider coming to Canada.
Along with William Hamilton's parents and seven siblings, the family came to Canada in 1829 lived at Toronto. Hamilton moved briefly to Penetanguishene, where he had a sister, and worked as a clerk in a general store and fur trading establishment owned by the brother of his father's first wife. He returned briefly to Toronto to study at a preparatory school run by his older brother, James, but decided that "I was not cut out for a literary man." His father by that time had been appointed postmaster at Penetanguishene, and had received 800 acres at Matchedash Township on the North River as his entitlement as a captain in the army. William and his brother Gustavus moved to Matchedash in late 1832, and built a log home on the property, and the next year his father and mother moved to the property. The family grew wheat, oats and root crops, and Captain Hamilton leased a saw mill on the Severn River where they took oak from the property to be milled and used to build another house.
In 1836, the farm was flooded out by the North River, and Capt. Hamilton and his wife moved to Orillia; William returned to Penetanguishene and helped his sister run her late husband's business.
He married Mary Wasenidge of Toronto in October, 1841; she died a couple of years later, leaving Hamilton with an infant daughter, Mary Matilda Elizabeth (baptized Oct. 15, 1843). He remarried, to Jessie Jamieson Campbell, on Oct. 15, 1846, and entered a business partnership with his sister's second husband, James Darling; it was at this time he also become post master of Penetanguishene. He eventually bought out his brother-in-law's interest in the company.
Hamilton also carried on a business supplying the garrison at Penetanguishene.
Hamilton was also a member of the militia (he joined in 1832), and was promoted to the level of Major; he remained in the service until the Militia was discontinued.
He gradually entered political life, and was elected reeve of Tiny and Tay townships, and along with an appointment as post master, he was also an agent for the Bank of Upper Canada, paymaster on Government Roads, and a Justice of the Peace.
In 1853, he purchased a large tract of pine forest on the Muskoka River with the intention to get into the lumber business, and built a saw mill at the mouth of the river on Georgian Bay. However, the market in lumber declined at that point; he entered into a partnership with three other men, but the business was soon lost.
In 1854, John McMaster and W.G. Patterson won a lawsuit to obtain 350 acres on the east side of Hurontario Street, and offered Hamilton a one-quarter share for $8,000. Hamilton sold his business interests in Penetanguishene to his nephews Andrew and David Mitchell, and he and Jessie and their children moved to Collingwood and assumed the management of the McMaster Estate.
Selection as mayor
Hamilton was one of nine men elected to the first council, along with James Telfer, John Rowland, Benjamin W. Smith, Dr. Alexander Richard Stephen, John McWatt, William Gibbard, Charles Mcdonnell and George Armstrong. At the inaugural meeting of the council elected for the new town, Hamilton was selected as mayor; Telfer was selected as Reeve, and John Hogg - the proprietor of The Enterprise - was hired as town clerk.
Hamilton's selection came down to his own vote, as council was equally split on who would be the first mayor.
At council's first meeting, on Feb. 2, 1858, McWatt and Gibbard attempted to present a motion to remove Hamilton as mayor; it was narrowly defeated .
Outside politics
Hamilton started out in his business career in Collingwood as a land speculator, and with the rapid expansion of the community made a considerable amount selling lots out of his quarter-share of the land he owned with McMaster and Patterson.
He also constructed a grist mill at the mouth of the Pretty River.
In his own admission, Hamilton also fell victim to some of the land speculation that was rampant in Collingwood's early years. Of a period of recession in 1857, Hamilton noted that, "lots that I had refused $1,000 for could not have been sold for $5. Such a crash I think no one ever saw." Hamilton declared bankruptcy at that time, coming out "just as clean as the day I was born," having been forced to sell the mill in order to settle his debts. The Hamiltons put their faith in God, and struggled until 1861 when he was appointed post master; in his recounting of that time period, written sometime between 1883 and his death in 1891, Hamilton reflected, "although the Income at first was very small yet with care and economy we have been well provided for and now in our old age we can say, 'hitherto the Lord hath helped us'."
Several of the street names in the east end, such as St. Vincent, St. Paul, St. Marie, Wellington, Rodney, Peel, Napier and Hume, were chosen by Hamilton .
Hamilton was also a philanthropist, and an advocate of Temperance; he was an avid supporter of the local chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. He volunteered his time at the General and Marine Hospital, and on Sunday afternoons would read the Gospel to patients. Hamilton was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and was among the first trustees for the high school and the Mechanics' Institute.
Death
Hamilton died of an apparent heart attack at his home. According to his obituary in the Enterprise-Messenger, Hamilton had been tending his garden, and was preparing for dinner with his family.
Family
Hamilton's older brother, James (1810-1896) was considered an significant regional artist in Middlesex County, England, after a career in banking in Toronto and London; through his involvement with Canada’s earliest art societies, he helped nurture a gradually developing artistic community and a sense of professionalism among artists, a direct outgrowth of the political, economic, and social stabilization of Upper Canada. His work is held by the National Archives in England, and the London Regional Art Gallery in Ontario, among others .
William and Jessie Campbell had 10 children; two died in infancy: Francis Russell Hamilton (Aug. 31, 1847); Isabella Jupp Hamilton (Dec. 28, 1848 - May 6, 1941); William Anderson Hamilton (Nov. 22, 1850 - 1930); Lauchlan Alexander Hamilton (Sept. 20, 1852 - Feb. 11, 1941); Ann Christina Hamilton (Sept. 19, 1854 - Aug. 15, 1855); Jessie Louisa Hamilton (Aug. 29,1856 - June 11, 1925); Sophia Bertha Hamilton (1859 - June 11. 1873); Heber James Hamilton (Dec. 16, 1862); Frank Hamilton (Dec. 16, 1865); Basil George Hamilton (Oct. 14, 1869).
Quotes
"In the cause of Temperance, likewise, he was always at work. Indeed, it seemed fitting that a life of zeal and goodness should end as it did in the midst of active labours for the temporal and spiritual welfare of his fellow beings." From his obituary in the Enterprise-Messenger.
References
T.G Anderson Papers: 492 - William Basil Hamilton: Penetanguishene Fur Trader and Collingwood Pioneer, by Gary E. French
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