What was to be the first Welland Canal started out as a scheme to get more water into Twelve Mile Creek. It all began in 1818 when William Hamilton Merritt, a farmer, mill owner, and much more, got fed up when the water level dropped every summer and his mill wheel ground to a halt. So one day he and some of his neighbours decided to take a look at the feasibility of cutting a small canal from the Welland River at what is now Port Robinson to divert water to the Twelve Mile Creek at DeCew Falls. They estimated, incorrectly, that the cut would only need to be thirty feet deep.

At some point after that, the water canal scheme changed to a barge canal scheme. Barges destined for Lake Erie would be carried from Lake Ontario by the Twelve Mile Creek to the escarpment at DeCew Falls, where they would be hoisted by an inclined railway to the top. Once at the top of the escarpment, the barges would proceed along the canal to the Welland River, then down that river to Chippawa, the Niagara River, and Lake Erie.

Merritt and his partners formed a company to build the canal and Merritt started to drum up investment. To state that this was difficult would be an understatement, but eventually the company got enough funds to start. By this time, however, the scheme had changed again. It had become apparent that what was needed was a canal that could handle larger boats to overcome the competition from the Erie Canal in New York State. So the inclined railway was scrapped. Instead, boats from Lake Ontario would sail up Twelve Mile Creek to Dick's Creek, then up that creek to the escarpment where they would be raised by a series of locks. Once up at the top, they would be carried by a canal to the Welland River as before but by a different route.

During construction, the builders encountered a major problem. There is a ridge between the escarpment and the Welland River and, instead of a thirty foot cut through the ridge, what was needed was a deep cut of sixty feet. When they got down near the bottom of the cut, they found that the walls of the cut collapsed. They finally decided that the canal could not be cut deep enough to use the Welland River as a source for water. Somehow they would have to find a source that had a higher elevation than the Welland River. The solution was to build a feeder canal from the Grand River, which was dammed to raise its height by eight feet.

By the time the first canal opened in 1829, it had 39 locks including two at Port Robinson to lower boats to, and raise boats from, the Welland River. To save money, all locks were wooden, which was to become a problem for the canal. Another problem was the route from Port Robinson through Chippawa to Lake Erie. The Niagara River current was so strong that it required an immense effort to pull boats from Chippawa to Fort Erie. So by 1833, the canal was extended from Port Robinson to the Gravelly Bay at what became Port Colborne. Even so, Lake Erie was not high enough to be the source of water for the canal so the feeder canal was still needed. In fact it was used to transport small boats between the Welland Canal and the Grand River. It was this circumstance that encouraged Merritt, Absalom Shade, and others to invest in the Grand River Navigation Company to transport goods from the heart of Upper Canada by river to Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

By 1842, the canal's wooden locks were decaying, the company could not afford to renew them, and the government owned a large amount of the stock, so the government bought out the company and decided to built a second canal to handle bigger boats. The second canal generally followed the route of the first canal but the locks were stone. Because the first canal had to be kept open while the second canal was being built, the new canal was built parallel to the old but the locks were deeper and wider. Many of these second-canal locks still survive. Because first-canal locks were made of wood, only one lock is known to exist; it was uncovered, examined, then re-covered to preserve the old timbers.

One place where the old first canal route was not followed was at Port Dalhousie, where the old route through the sandbank and first lock was replaced with a different route and a different first lock. To create a basin for holding ships waiting to enter or leave the canal, the creek was dammed to raise the water level, creating an inner harbour that still exists. Then the present channel through the sandbank was cut. The first lock for the second canal still exists, without the lock gates, as do the nearby stores and hotel, although the exit from the first lock to the inner harbour has been filled in to form a park.

First Lock Second Canal at Port Dalhousie

Second Lock Second Canal at Welland Vale