Hamilton, John

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Peter Baskerville, “HAMILTON, JOHN, (1802-82),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/hamilton_john_1802_82_11E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Businessman and politician; b. 1802 at Queenston, Upper Canada, youngest son of Robert Hamilton and Mary Herkimer; d. 10 Oct. 1882 at Kingston, Ont.
    • John Hamilton was born into a wealthy and influential family. He received a classical education at Queenston and Edinburgh, Scotland, before working as a clerk from 1820 to 1824 for Desrivières and Blackwood, wholesale merchants in Montreal. John’s father had died in 1809, but because of his youth and the complicated nature of the will, he did not receive his share of the estate until 1824. The final settlement, although not totally satisfactory to John, did enable him and his stepbrother Robert to found the Queenston Steamboat Company.
    • John Hamilton repeatedly utilized technical innovations to succeed in the financially hazardous and extremely competitive inland shipping business. In 1830–31 he had the Great Britain, a new model steamer, built at Prescott at a cost of over £20,000. He also owned the Lord Sydenham, the first large steamer, and the Passport, the first iron steamer, to run the Lachine rapids. A shrewd manager, he generally owned only two or three steamboats and leased others, which allowed him to keep his overhead costs down and to react more quickly than many of his competitors to sharp fluctuations in the economy.
    • Although never his major interest, Hamilton’s political career was exceptionally long. In 1831 he accepted an “unexpected . . . [and] undesired” appointment to the Legislative Council of Upper Canada. His initial reluctance soon disappeared and he sat in the Legislative Council of the Province of Canada from 1841 to 1867 and served in the Senate from 1867 until his death.
    • By the mid 1870s, Hamilton, “one of those thoroughly aristocratic men,” was a patriarchal figure in the Kingston area. He had been an incorporator of the Wolfe Island, Kingston and Toronto Railroad Company in 1846 and the Union Forwarding and Railway Company in 1859 as well as a director of the Kingston Fire and Marine Insurance Company and the Life Association of Scotland.
  • Grandson of Proven Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=3780
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/188251646/john-hamilton