William Hamilton Merritt — merchant, developer, and politician — projected and built the Welland Canal in the 1820s to bypass the mighty barrier of Niagara Falls and thereby link the Upper and Lower Great Lakes in one unbroken water highway of commerce. Before the building of the Welland Canal, all ships had to unload their cargoes at the mouth of the rapids-filled Niagara River for carriage overland along high slopes and have them reloaded into other vessels above and beyond the roaring Falls — a cumbersome and costly procedure. But Merritt’s canal, opened in 1829, provided a through shipping route across the heartlands of North America that would prove of almost incalculable value.
 

If anyone conquered Niagara, William Hamilton Merritt did! He not only made it possible for shipping to bypass the cataracts of the Niagara River but also planned and promoted the successful building of the first bridge across the great Niagara chasm. His Welland Canal opened in 1829; the first bridge to span the Niagara gorge opened in 1849. [Photo, courtesy The Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library]

Indeed, this initial Welland Canal would be followed by three more as the line of passage was improved, enlarged, and even shifted to respond both to the ever-growing needs of traffic and to advances made in canal technology. The present Fourth Canal (dating from 1931), with its high concrete locks that lift giant grain and ore carriers or transatlantic vessels, is a far cry from the First Canal of 1829 whose timber-shored locks were suited to small sailing schooners. But the principle is the same and it all goes back to the vision, thrust, and resolution of William Merritt for whom, however, building the Welland was only one phase in a notably productive life. Born at Bedford in New York state in 1793, Merritt was the son of a U.E. Loyalist who had fought during the American Revolution in the Queen’s Rangers commanded by John Graves Simcoe, future first governor of Upper Canada. The Merritt family had found life intolerable as persecuted Loyalists in the new American republic and so had moved to the Niagara district in Upper Canada, settling in what became the area of St. Catharines. There, young William Merritt grew up (where his father was now sheriff), eventually taking up surveying and navigation with a Loyalist uncle in New Brunswick. At age 17, back in the village of St. Catharines, he ventured into a partnership in a “general mercantile business.” When the War of 1812 began, William marched with the militia to serve under General Brock in the British capture of Detroit, went on to fight gallantly at Queenston Heights and Stoney Creek, was promoted to captain but was then taken prisoner at Lundy’s Lane in 1814. At war’s end he was released and returned home in 1815.

Merritt now began a partnership in another merchant business in the fast-growing St. Catharines neighbourhood. He bought land there, ventured successfully in developing local salt springs and, above all, began to envision a canal to connect Lakes Ontario and Erie across the Niagara peninsula. In 1818, at 25 and full of energy, he carried out a rough survey of his own projected canal route and that year submitted, to the Upper Canada legislature, a petition, signed by the influential settlers in his area, that sought an appropriation for a more accurate survey. Two thousand pounds was voted for this survey. Then Merritt proceeded to have the survey redone, raised more money, and finally sought an act incorporating “The Welland Canal Company” (named for the Welland River which would play a main part in the route). In 1824 the act was passed, and Merritt went to New York City to gain American investors for his project. His promotions succeeded, and the digging of the canal commenced in November of that year. Five years later, in November 1829, the first two vessels entered the completed canal to pass St. Catharines on their way to Buffalo. Merritt’s bold vision had been realized.

His water highway prospered, increasingly drawing traffic, but he by no means stopped there. His commercial concerns and promotional activities continued to grow. For example, he projected the Suspension Bridge to span the Niagara Gorge in 1845 and headed the company that successfully erected it by 1848. And as railway building came to Canada, he organized the Welland Railway Company, a year-round auxiliary to his canal. Merritt also took to politics, representing Haldimand County in the Upper Canada Assembly from 1832 to 1841, thereafter sitting for Lincoln in the United Canada legislature from 1841 to 1860. Beginning as a Conservative, he became a Moderate Reformer and, in time, a Liberal, backing responsible self-government in the 1840s and especially the Liberal drive to end British imperial tariff control. In his commercial (and canal) concern with free trade across inland North America, he spoke and wrote on open access over the American border and while a member of the Liberal government of 1848, pushed his theme (which ultimately led to Canadian-American reciprocal free trade by 1854).

Merritt left government in 1851 and, though still engaged in aiding the collection of Loyalist records and in providing help for refugee American slaves, moved towards public retirement. That he died in 1862 aboard a ship in the young St. Lawrence Canal was a note of irony in the saga of an Upper Canadian visionary.

J.M.S. Careless