Isaac Buchanan was perhaps one of the most important figures, not only in Hamilton’s history, but in the history of Canada as well. He was a man of family, business, religion, and politics. He also had an enormous amount of national pride and commitment to important social issues. The number of accomplishments that Buchanan made is so great that it is hard to believe they happened to one man, in one lifetime.

Isaac Buchanan was born on July 21, 1810, in Glasgow, Scotland. He was born into a socially ambitious mercantile family. The family had consisted of prominent businessmen in Scotland for generations. Isaac’s father, Peter, had become independently wealthy during the Napoleonic Wars. The family moved to the urban area of Glasgow and became successful manufacturers of cloth. By the early 1800s, the family business was doing very well and the Buchanans bought a home in Stirlingshire. The 1378-acre estate was named Auchmar, and so the family became known as the Buchanans of Auchmar.

Isaac’s father wanted him to be a literary figure and sent him to the best schools, such as Glasgow Grammar School, and gave him a private tutor. His father also wanted him to go to university. Isaac studied diligently with the intention of fulfilling his father’s wishes.

In a strange twist of fate however, Isaac was lured into business on the very day he was to have applied to university. A family friend approached Isaac on the street and offered him a job with William Guild & Company, traders to the West Indies. Isaac was intrigued by the offer and he knew that university would always be available, should he later change his mind. He took the job, without even consulting his father, who was out of town. Fortunately, his father later approved.

In October of 1825, Isaac abandoned his studies and went to work for William Guild & Company. He gained respect from William Guild Sr. and was allowed to buy a quarter share in the company’s Montreal branch when the company expanded. In three short years, Buchanan went from bookkeeper to boss of the firm. He was a partner before his 20^th birthday. In March of 1830, Isaac left Scotland for Lower Canada. He was to manage the Montreal branch of William Guild & Company. Isaac was only 19 years old at the time, but his plan was to make his fortune quickly and then return to Scotland. When he arrived in Montreal, he discovered that there was a lot of competition for businessmen in that part of Canada. He had the idea to move Guild’s business to York, the site of present day Toronto, in Upper Canada. Buchanan and Guild could not agree on this issue, so Isaac left the firm to go into business with his brother, Peter.

Isaac’s father had sold Auchmar for a decent amount of money, which he divided up amongst his children. Peter and Isaac were both given 12,000 pounds, which made it possible for the two brothers to start their own business. They established Peter Buchanan & Company in Glasgow, which controlled the financing and purchasing of dry goods. Isaac Buchanan & Company was established in Toronto to handle that sales and distribution of merchandise. Each branch that opened was set up as a separate company, with the Buchanan brothers in part-ownership of each one. This structure was common for businesses at the time. Glasgow remained the financial centre of the company and they employed Scots whenever possible; thus, a Scottish company was being built rather than a Canadian one. Isaac made frequent trips between both countries.  In fact, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean 29 times in 40 years.

On January 27, 1843, during one of his visits to Scotland, Isaac married Agnes Jarvie. Isaac was 33 when he married his 17-year-old wife. He brought Agnes to Toronto with him in November 1843. He assured her they would remain in Canada only long enough for him to make his fortune and then they would return to Scotland for good. Their first child was born in 1844 in Toronto, and their second child was born in 1846 in Scotland. The Buchanans had 11 children born between Canada and Scotland. Agnes Buchanan proved to be a fair and gracious wife who aided her husband in many of his affairs.

Isaac moved from Toronto to Hamilton with his new wife and baby. In 1854, he bought 86 acres of land on the Hamilton Mountain overlooking the city. On this land, he built Auchmar, a tribute to his father’s home in Scotland. Originally, it was a summer cottage which soon  became the Buchanans’ great manor house. The house is now 88 Fennell Avenue West. It is an example of the picturesque homes of many wealthy Canadians of the time.

Isaac decided to close the Toronto branch of his dry goods business in favour of the more successful Hamilton branch. He set out to organize local businesses by founding the Hamilton Board of Trade, becoming its first president.

Buchanan got caught up in the optimistic economy of the 1850s and rapidly expanded his firm. By 1855, it was one of the largest firms in Canada. Isaac however, had stretched the firm’s credit to the limit and was suffering from lack of control. Also, in 1853, two of the firm’s major partners, John Young of Hamilton and James Law of Montreal, both left the company to start competitive firms. Two of the remaining senior partners, Peter Buchanan and Robert Harris, were ill at the time. Isaac was becoming very involved in the Great Western Railway and was beginning to neglect the firm. He believed that a railway would be the key to Hamilton’s continued business success in Western markets. He believed so strongly in the railway, that he made efforts to forestall competition with the Great West. He secured control of the Amherstburg and St. Thomas Railway, as well as the Woodstock and Lake Erie Railway, using his firm’s credit. He did not’t tell his partners of his actions. When the Great Western would not sanction Isaac’s actions, his partners found themselves committed to two railways. In September 1856 they repudiated Isaac’s use of the firm’s credit and they forced him to resign until he resolved his finances.

The economic boom of the 1850s ended in 1857 leaving  the City of Hamilton and Buchanan nearly bankrupt. Fortunately, he was able to use his position to stave off creditors. Even though his fortune was dwindling, Isaac was able to get credit based on his reputation. He was nearly broke, but others who still saw him as a person who was established in New York and other places, had partners in a firm, was an active businessman, and was President of the Great Western Railway. The Buchanan Company was also pushed near bankruptcy by the crash of 1857. In three years the firm’s capital worth fell by two thirds. The remaining partners, led by Peter, scrambled to save the firm. They closed Liverpool and New York branches, reduced salaries, dismissed staff and brought in Robert Wemyss to manage the Hamilton branch, since Isaac was no longer desired. They managed to use the position of the assembly to secure a charter for the Niagara and Detroit Rivers Railway in 1858.

At this time, the firm took sympathy on Isaac. The partners, persuaded mostly by Peter, allowed him to cut his losses at 50,000 pounds and relieved him of his rash railway purchase. He reentered the company in 1858. He was still unrepentant and unwilling to reduce expenses. Peter continually protected Isaac despite his irresponsible behaviour.  

In 1860, Peter died in a hunting accident. Peter had provided the strong managerial control needed to counter Isaac’s risky behaviour. Isaac once again enlarged the company. He entered into a number of unprofitable ventures and by 1864 the company was once again close to bankruptcy. Branches in London (Ontario), Hamilton and Glasgow all failed.

But Isaac’s energy and strong sense of drive had been an asset to the firm at times. He had known that a new aspiring company should not start in Montreal, the centre of Canadian business at the time. Instead, he based in Toronto and imported retail for sale through storekeepers in towns and villages. He knew how to cater to the frontier population’s demand for ladies cotton pantaloons, woolen jackets, blankets, and other apparel. Isaac was always on the move finding the best markets, which often meant following the population west. He traveled continually, by buggy in the summer and sleigh in the winter. He was one of Canada’s first travelling salesmen. Buchanan’s business was also a fundamental aspect of living in Canada at that time. People were dependent on imported goods and the country had a lot of wheat to export. A company like Buchanan’s provided the necessary link in importing and exporting.

However, Isaac did get caught up in the idea of railways, as did many other Canadians at the time. Every city was building railways. To finance it, they would go into debt with the province. By 1873 municipalities were $12,000,000 in debt to the province. The thought was that railways would increase prosperity, when in many cases they ended up going bankrupt. When Isaac became involved with the railway, he neglected the dry goods business that had been his financial staple. Even Peter’s cautious warnings could not sway Isaac from the belief that his own judgement was infallible.

Soon after his brother’s death and the firm’s second bout with bankruptcy, Buchanan was forced to retire. He had lost his last connection with the company and walked away in financial ruin. Isaac lived to see his firm collapse and had to live the rest of his life off the charity of friends.

The friends that Buchanan had made over the years came from his social life, rather than his business connections. He had his parents’ social ambition. He became very involved with the Presbyterian Church in Toronto for social reasons, and because he was very religious. He also hoped to reform the church, which he took issue with on many occasions. Isaac gave a large amount of time and money to Presbyterian causes all over Canada West, since he was convinced that state-funded churches could never be free from political influence. He was a pillar of the Scot’s Presbyterian community and when the church he attended became too crowded, Buchanan donated land and money for the MacNab Street Church to be built in 1856. He offered a donation of $200 for each of the first ten Presbyterian churches to be erected in Ontario. Eight churches were built and they were all named Knox Church after the leading religious figure in Scotland at the time of the Reformation.

His religious flair brought out some negative qualities in Buchanan as well. He was deeply anti-Roman Catholic and anti-French Canadian. In his church, he would act out very strongly and sometimes violently against what he saw as doctrinal impurity. He urged Presbyterians to vote only for Scottish candidates who pledged to overthrow the establishment. Although he opposed churches that were tainted by state politics, he had no reserves about bringing his personal politics into his religious life.

Buchanan eventually broke with the church which resulted from disagreement over a secular issue. In 1846, when Isaac was preparing to return to Scotland, he got news of the repeal of the Corn Laws. He thought this would lead to the collapse of colonial trade, the downfall of British Empire, and his own impoverishment. By 1858, he was in the throws of a passionate anti-free trade campaign. When he could not convince the Free Church of Scotland to come out against free trade, he left saying that the church had betrayed adherents and doctrines.

Buchanan was very passionate in his actions and had become very involved in Canadian politics over the years. After returning to Canada in 1839 from another trip back home, Buchanan became very involved in politics. In 1841, Upper and Lower Canada joined under one common name, Canada. The provinces of Quebec and Ontario were then known as Canada East and Canada West respectively. Buchanan was elected as one of the first two members to represent Toronto in the first Parliament of Canada. He was a model constituency man and he always championed the interests of Hamilton in politics.

Buchanan considered himself a radical politically, although he never wanted to destroy the existing structure of society. In the rebellion of 1837, Buchanan aided the Lieutenant Governor who he had been opposed to days before. Although there were certain aspects of politics that Buchanan wanted to overthrow, such as the Family Compact, he disliked the uncertainty of rebellion.

Throughout his political career, Isaac Buchanan’s fundamental concern was the economic prosperity of Canada. He remained opposed to free trade, starting a campaign that encompassed an essay contest, publication of pamphlets and special newspaper issues. He also undertook extensive speaking tours. Buchanan argued that as long as the Canadian economy depended on raw materials, it would be subjected to every tremor of the world’s economy. He wanted the country to become self-sufficient, no longer depending on Britain for financial support. For this reason, he helped found the Association for the Promotion of Canadian Industry in 1858. He continued to lobby for tariff reform and published a stream of pamphlets slamming free trade. Buchanan is sometimes considered the real father of the "National Policy" because he was one of the earliest advocates of tariff protection in Canada. In later years, he was in favour of a commercial union with the United States, and he supported the 1854 Reciprocity Treaty. He hoped to see the treaty developed into a full-scale tariff / trade agreement with the United States.

Buchanan wrote frequently on the topic of trade and currency and many of his articles were very controversial. He wanted to adopt a system of Canadian currency using paper money. He wrote once, "gold is made the one thing needed in this world by the unpatriotic principle of England’s money law, which both the United States and Canada have been foolish enough to copy."

Buchanan’s concerns did expand outside of politics and economics. He had a passion for education and other social issues. In 1836 he helped found a group for Scottish immigrants called the St. Andrew’s Society. In the first year he served as one of three managers and the following year he was elected to the presidency of the St. Andrew’s Society and to chairman of the board of trustees of St. Andrew’s Church. He also helped establish the first men’s club in Toronto, which still exists today.

Buchanan believed that educated citizens contributed to a stable and prosperous society. He supported the Hamilton and Gore Mechanics Institute and the Hamilton Mercantile Library. He also worked tirelessly for Knox College, which was established in 1845. Isaac maintained a connection with this congregation until his death.

Buchanan encouraged Sunday School by giving two prizes a year to each class for studiousness and regular attendance.

During Buchanan’s years in Canada, many black people came to this country from the United States to escape slavery. Buchanan was against slavery in his politics, and in 1859, he tried to tackle the slavery problem. On August first, the day that people celebrated emancipation, Buchanan sent an invitation to black people to spend this day at his house. Six hundred black people gathered in Hamilton for a day’s worth of activities. They attended service at Christ’s Church, marched past the Spectator building, and then proceeded to Auchmar where Buchanan had a lavish picnic ready for them. At the picnic, Isaac spoke about his plans for negotiation with the South to abolish slavery by 1900. His plan was to educate the public for freedom.

The friends that Buchanan had made over the years supported him in the last years of his life, after his firm had crumbled and he had lost his fortune. He sold his Hamilton home which he had lavished his attention on since 1852. He turned his assets over to his creditors and moved with his family to rented quarters in Hamilton. He was finally cleared from debt in 1878 and in 1879 he was granted a modest sinecure from the Canadian government. For the rest of his life, Buchanan was able to live in secure, but reduced, circumstances.

Perhaps it is unfair, however, to consider Buchanan a failure. One of Buchanan’s partners in the firm, R.W. Harris, prospered with the firm and was one of the richest men in Hamilton. He withdrew from the firm because of ill health at the same time as his assets began to shrink. He died soon after retiring. If Harris had lived much longer, he would have been considered a failure; instead, he is considered a financial success. Perhaps the only reason that Isaac can be considered a failure is because he lived long enough to see his firm collapse.