Prior to colonization, Hamilton was occupied by the Chonnonton, or Attiwandaronk, an Iroquoian-speaking nation referred to by French explorers as the "Neutral" people.Nobel, William, "The Neutral" Historica Canada, Last Edited December 16, 2013 Since then, there have been successive waves of immigration.
Hamilton, from the point at which it was first colonized by settlers, has benefited from its geographical proximity to major land and water transportation routes along the Niagara Peninsula and Lake Ontario. Its strategic importance has created a rich military history which the city preserves.
Tension between maximizing economic growth and minimizing environmental damage was evident, even from the city's early development. The area between Burlington Bay (also known as Hamilton Harbour) and the Niagara Escarpment has been greatly altered for residential, industrial and recreational purposes. Cootes Paradise in Dundas also known as the Dundas Marsh, was a very rich wetland with plenty of fish, birds and other game. Cootes Paradise was named after Captain Thomas Coote, a British army officer of Irish extraction who was stationed in the area at the time of the American revolutionary war in the 18th century. The richness of the valley led to population, and to degradation of the marsh, although its legal protection, starting in the 1880s, and the efforts of civic officials and others, have led to it still being of great environmental importance in the 21st century.
For about a century after achieving its status as a city in 1846, Hamilton has seen itself in terms of industrial production. It adopted or acquired such nicknames as the Ambitious City, Steel City and the Birmingham of Canada. However, after this period, other sectors of the economy took over and Hamilton became a post-industrial economy but failed to change its image and self-image to match. Here then follows the growth of the Hamilton until the end of the Second World War.
Pre-1811
Like most of the Americas, the original inhabitants of the Hamilton area were Native North American Aboriginal peoples. The first European to visit what is now Hamilton was probably Étienne Brûlé in 1616. Lasalle also visited the area, a fact commemorated at a park in nearby Burlington.
In pre-colonial times, the Neutral Nation occupied most of the land but were gradually driven out by the Haudenosaunee who were allied with British against the French and their Wendat allies. A member of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy provided both the route and name for Mohawk Road on Hamilton Mountain and the route for what would become King Street in the Lower City.
Like British North America itself, the Six Nations confederacy was torn apart by the American Revolution. Indigenous groups loyal to the Crown, under their leader Captain Joseph Brant, were settled in several nearby areas of what became Upper Canada in 1791 and ultimately Ontario in 1867. These included Brant’s Ford (now Brantford) on the Grand River in Brant County south of Hamilton, and Brant’s Block (now Burlington) in Halton County north of Hamilton.
The United Empire Loyalists moved into the Hamilton area during and after the American War of Independence as well, dramatically boosting the population and economic development of the region between the original Upper Canadian capital at Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) and the new one at York (now Toronto). This was to prove crucial, for the fighting between the United States and Britain was not yet over.
Administratively, the whole area was part of the Nassau District, which was renamed the Home District in 1792. Additionally, parts of the area were separately incorporated into the West Riding of York County and First Riding of Lincoln County. In 1798, most of the future Hamilton became part of Niagara District while remaining in Lincoln County.
1812–1844 The town of Hamilton was conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812. Nathaniel Hughson, a property owner to the north, cooperated with George Hamilton to prepare a proposal for a courthouse and jail on Hamilton's property. Hamilton offered the land to the crown for the future site. James Durand, the local Member of the British Legislative Assembly, was empowered by Hughson and Hamilton to sell property holdings which later became the site of the town. As he had been instructed, Durand circulated the offers at York during a session of the Legislative Assembly and a new Gore District was established of which the Hamilton town site was a member. As such, Hamilton's future seemed to be shaped by a private collaboration of Hamilton, Hughson and Durand.
Initially the Town of Hamilton was not the dominant center of the Gore District. A permanent jail was not constructed until 1832 when a cut-stone design was completed on one of the two squares created in 1816, Prince's Square. Subsequently, the first police board and the town limits were defined by statute on February 13 of 1833.Statutes of Upper Canada, 1833 3° William IV pg. 58-68. Chapter XVII An act to define the Limits of the Town of Hamilton, in the District of Gore, and to establish a Police and Publice Market therein.
After simmering treaty and border disputes finally erupted into the War of 1812, the Hamilton area again became a strategic area. In 1813, the British regulars and Canadian militia defeated invading American troops at the Battle of Stoney Creek which was fought in what is now a park in eastern Hamilton. Burlington Heights, adjacent to the grounds of present-day Dundurn Park and Castle, was also a site commanding the entry to Burlington Bay.
George Hamilton, a settler and local politician, established a town site in the northern portion Barton Township after the war in 1815. He kept several east–west roads which were originally Indian trails, but the north–south streets were on a regular grid pattern. Streets were designated "East" or "West" if they crossed James Street or King’s Highway No. 6. Streets were designated "North" or "South" if they crossed King Street or King’s Highway No. 8.
Gore Park, whose western boundary is King and James Streets, formed the public square for the new settlement and has remained the centre of the city ever since. The original plot of land set aside for the courthouse has had four different buildings erected on it. It was only supplanted as the court site by a move across the street in the 1990s as part of an architectural preservation project for the Post Office and Dominion Public Building.
Gore District of Upper Canada and Wentworth County were created in 1816, with Mr. Hamilton’s settlement as the seat for both. The county’s original constituent townships included the following, the territory of which became part of the amalgamated Hamilton in 2001: Ancaster (later a town), Barton, Binbrook (later one half of Glanbrook), Glanford (later the other half of Glanbrook) and Saltfleet (later the town and city of Stoney Creek). Seneca and Brant Townships were also original constituents of the county but later became part of Haldimand County and Brant County, respectively.
During the first half of the 19th century, Mr. Hamilton’s settlement in Barton Township steadily increased status at the expense of Dundas. Growth was aided in 1810 by a channel cut to link Burlington Bay directly with Lake Ontario, thus improving its marine transportation. George Hamilton’s settlement was incorporated as a police village in 1833. In comparison, the Desjardins Canal to Dundas was at best an incomplete success. The physical structures, with living interpreters, of these pioneer days are preserved at Westfield Heritage Centre.
As railway fever raced across North America, Hamilton prematurely got in the act with the promotion of various paper lines in the 1830s. This included Allan Napier MacNab’s Hamilton and Port Dover Railway which, although chartered in 1835, did not actually lay any track until the mid-1850s under a different corporate name. MacNab completed Dundurn Castle, his stately home, in 1835. A boy soldier in the War of 1812, he led Gore militia to crush insurgents in the Rebellion of 1837 for which he was knighted the following year.
1845–1866 Official City status was achieved on June 9, 1846.Provincial Statutes of Canada 1846 9° vict. pg 981 Chapter LXXIII. An Act to amend the Act incorporating the Town of Hamilton, and to erect the same into a City.
As a result of municipal reorganization of Wentworth County, Caistor Township (earlier and later part of West Lincoln) was briefly added in 1845. Hamilton received its city charter in 1846. Seneca, Onondaga and Caistor Townships were removed from the administration of county and replaced with three others from Halton County: Beverly, East Flamborough and West Flamborough (which were amalgamated as the Town of Flamborough 1974-2000).
Hamilton City Council was based on a board of control, which effectively meant an executive committee of at-large city councillors controlled the city government. Mayors were short-term figureheads who changed mostly on practically an annual basis. The same year Hamilton became a city, Robert Smiley and a partner began publishing ‘’The Hamilton Spectator and Journal of Commerce".
As MacNab completed his two years as the premier of the united Province of Canada, the newly renamed Great Western Railway became Hamilton’s first functioning railway in 1854. Completion of this railway and the Niagara Suspension Bridge transformed Hamilton into a major centre and part of the American immigration route from New York City or Boston to Chicago or Milwaukee. Over two hundred miles of distance was saved travelling through what was then called CANADA WEST. However, because of the different gauge or width between the American and Canadian tracks, passengers had to switch trains at both Niagara Falls, then known as Clifton, as well as at Detroit. The GWR’s maintenance and marshalling yards were located in Hamilton, and the city got its first taste of the steel industry as it re-rolled rails imported from Britain. Unfortunately, in 1857, 57 passengers were killed when a train derailed near the Desjardins Canal.
Not content with this relatively minor operation, dozens of small workshops and craftsmen banded together to smelt steel rather than just mill steel. Easy access to limestone from the Niagara Escarpment, coal mined in Appalachia, iron ore mined from the Canadian Shield and export markets through the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system made Hamilton an important iron and steel producing city.
Other industrial ventures conducted in the Ambitious City (a phrase adopted by ‘’The Spectator" from detractors in Toronto) and Birmingham of Canada included manufactured tobacco, beer and other consumer products. It also became a centre for the textile industry, which did not die out completely until the 1950s.
Long before the Royal Military College of Canada was established in 1876, there were proposals for military colleges in Canada. Staffed by British Regulars, adult male students underwent a 3-month-long military course from 1865 at the School of Military Instruction in Hamilton. Established by Militia General Order in 1865, the school enabled Officers of Militia or Candidates for Commission or promotion in the Militia to learn Military duties, drill and discipline, to command a Company at Battalion Drill, to Drill a Company at Company Drill, the internal economy of a Company and the duties of a Company's Officer. The school was not retained at Confederation, in 1867.Richard Preston 'Canada's RMC: A History of the Royal Military College of Canada' published by the RMC Club by U of Toronto Press.
1867–1892