First to be called mayor? Colin Campbell Ferrie
Business owner wasn’t elected, he was appointed to a one-year term in 1847 January 16, 1847
Hamilton’s very first mayor, for one year only, was Hamilton businessperson Colin Campbell Ferrie (1808-1856).
Appointed Hamilton’s first mayor in 1847, Ferrie was also known for his sprawling estate at Queen and York that was called West Lawn. It was built in 1836 and demolished in 1957 by Tuckett Tobacco Co. Ltd.
According to an article in The Spectator from Jan. 21, 1947, “The old York street trail was selected by several prominent citizens of Hamilton as the site for their fine new homes. Crowning the height, Dundurn Castle eclipsed them all, but another palatial residence to the east ran a close second. At York and Queen streets was West Lawn, the home of Colin C. Ferrie, Hamilton’s first mayor.”
Ferrie was a major player in local commerce and was a founding member of the Hamilton Board of Trade formed in 1845. As mayor, he is remembered for focusing his attention on improving the local economy. He arranged civic financing from the Gore Bank and tried to prepare the city for an anticipated wave of poor and sick Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine in Ireland.
Ferrie timeline:
1808: Born in Glasgow, moving to Montreal in 1824 to work at his father’s wholesale business.
1929: Formed his own company with his brother Adam in Hamilton, called Colin Ferrie and Company. The business expanded and opened several stores in communities around Hamilton.
1836-1841: He became a founder of the Gore Bank and represented Hamilton in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada.
Jan. 16, 1847: Ferrie began his one-year appointment as the newly-incorporated city’s first mayor. (The first elected mayor in Hamilton was William McKinstry in 1859. Only men were allowed to vote because women’s suffrage didn’t happen until more than 50 years later).
1850s: After his mayoral term, he ran into financial problems after a series of setbacks that included two vessels carrying company goods sinking in Lake Ontario.
1856: After a meeting with officials from the Gore Bank, he collapsed and later died of “an enlargement of the heart.” He was 48. Many at the time attributed his demise to the stress he was under from his failing business interests.
Ferrie Street is named after Colin Campbell Ferrie. It runs in sections between Cheever and Bay streets.
Future mayoral scandals:
— David Chisholm, mayor from 18711872, later fled to Chicago after embezzling $100,000. His wife divorced him and then married Canada’s finance minister, George Foster.
— Alexander Stewart, mayor from 18941895, a trained doctor who became Hamilton police chief after emigrating from Scotland, modernized the force and reduced crime significantly. He resigned after assaulting the mayor, Alex McKay, in 1886, but was himself elected mayor in 1894. Defeated in his third run, he joined the Yukon gold rush and died of scurvy.
— Charles Booker, mayor from 1917-1920, created a royal uproar during the Prince of Wales’ visit in 1919, when he kept calling His Royal Highness “Princey.”
— Larry Di Ianni, mayor from 20032006, was the first mayor to be charged under election campaign financing laws. Di Ianni pleaded guilty to six offences under the Municipal Elections Act, after Dundas bookseller Joanna Chapman exposed errors in his campaign donations in 2003. He maintained that over-contributions to his campaign were unintentional.