War hero, visionary, and businessman, William Hamilton Merritt was born in Bedford, Westchester County, New York in 1793, the only son of Thomas Merritt, member of Simcoe's Queen's Rangers in the Revolutionary War. After the war, Thomas Merritt and his family had tried to live in the land where they had been born but found that they could not endure the persecution. So the Merritts decided in 1796 to move to the Niagara region, where they settled on Twelve Mile Creek near present-day St Catharines.

In the War of 1812, Merritt was the leader of a troop of militia cavalry and took part in the attack on Detroit and the Battles of Queenston Heights and Stoney Creek, but was captured at the Battle of Lundy's Lane. He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner. After the war, he returned home but not alone. In Maysville New York, he married Catharine Prendergast, whom he had known before the war when her father was a doctor in the Beaver Dams area.

He resumed his life as a farmer but started other businesses including a sawmill, a flour mill, and a distillery. In 1818, his businesses suffering from a lack of water in Twelve Mile Creek, he and other businessmen in the area decided to look into the idea of diverting some of the water from the Welland River to Twelve Mile Creek. They made a rough survey and estimated that it was feasible. Sometime after that, the idea changed from diverting water to building a canal, After all, if you have to dig a canal to divert some water, why not dig a bigger canal and pull barges through it?

Merritt and his partners formed a company to build the canal. To get the money for the scheme, Merritt travelled to the US and Britain, using his powers of persuasion to convince hard-headed businessmen to invest. The company succeeded in building the canal, which eventually opened in 1829.

After the canal was built, Merritt became a member of the Upper Canada Legislative Assembly as the Member for Haldimand, a member of the Executive Council, and, briefly, Minister of Public Works. He was interested in railways and, on a picnic with his wife at the Niagara River, conceived the idea of a bridge across the gorge. The bridge was built in 1849 and trains ran across it in 1855.

Merritt died in 1862 aged 69. His contemporaries had mixed views of him. Some people thought he was shrewd in business but overrated. Others thought he was basically honest but unscrupulous when presenting facts and figures (a 19th Century spin doctor). Others praised him for his determination to succeed despite many failures. It took a very special man to get the first Welland Canal built despite all the odds against it.

There is one story that seems to sum him up. When he was in Britain to drum up money for the canal, he had an appointment with the editor of the London Times. The editor did not really want to see him so gave him only five minutes to make his pitch. Merritt spread out a map of Canada and said, "Here is Lake Erie. Here is Niagara Falls. This is the St Lawrence River and the Atlantic Ocean. This is the route of the Welland Canal." Then Merritt folded up the map. The interview was over. A couple of days later, the editor, impressed by the short presentation, gave the canal a favourable comment, which helped Merritt to raise money for it.

Hamilton Merritt built a fine house on his St Catharines land in 1824. The house sat in an extensive park that stretched down to the Twelve Mile Creek. There he lived for over thirty years until, in 1858, the house was destoyed by fire. He rebuilt the house and lived there for the rest of his life. The house, Oak Hill, still sits at the top of the hill but the park has mostly disappeared. Appropriately, across the road from Oak Hill is his statue, looking not at St Catharines but away toward the canal that he fought so long and hard to get built.

Oak Hill