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CHAPTER FOUR

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One Bold Operator

Of those who died in the accident, without a doubt the most celebrated was Samuel Zimmerman. Newspaper reports described him as either the first- or second-richest man in the country. As his executors began the task of unravelling his estate that estimate underwent very substantial revision. Apparently he had learned how to put other people’s money to work in his own interest. Nevertheless, Zimmerman undoubtedly had a greater degree of political, financial, and social influence than anyone since. Zimmerman is a true Canadian enigma, whose role in history has been essentially obscured.

Following his death a curious riches-to-rags saga played out. On his passing his holdings were liquidated, his partially completed mansion abandoned, and his memory virtually expunged. One can search among the numerous memorials that dot the public parks of Niagara Falls, the city Zimmerman did so much to create, and will find no marker to commemorate his life. One glorious remnant of the formal gardens he created — a fountain that cost $15,000 to erect in the 1850s — endured for about a century. Then it was decapitated, and today is nothing more than a shallow goldfish pond fed by a few ugly utilitarian nozzles. As many as ten thousand people attended his funeral, but the temporary hillside vault in which he was laid to rest, commanding a panoramic view of both the American and Horseshoe Falls, remained in place just a few short years. In order to accommodate the forced sale of his estate it was dismantled, and Zimmerman’s remains were shipped to the outskirts of the city to be reinterred within the vault he had built for his first wife.

Even then his ignominy was not complete. His massive casket was too large to enter the burial crypt. Before it would fit, the outer casket was removed and the lead lining peeled off and sold to a local scrap dealer. There was even a rumour that the metal ended up being recycled into pipes for the Niagara water supply! For more than a century his new resting place remained unmemorialized, until the local historical society commissioned a mason to chisel a few details into the back of his first wife’s headstone.

Who was Samuel Zimmerman and what role did he play in mid-nineteenth century Canada? Modern phrases tend to give somewhat distorted impressions. A “Who’s Who” of the 1850s would probably have described him as a “railway contractor.” Yet, while he had direct responsibility for the construction of many hundreds of miles of railway, he routinely subcontracted the work and took none of the pride of a job well done that characterized the great civil engineering firms of the period. Today we might describe him as a political lobbyist, par excellence. But that label is far too superficial to cover the range of Zimmerman’s activities. In the decade or so before his death he had become as influential in the corridors of power as many of the leading lawmakers themselves. This complex man, with the ability to beguile politicians and dictate policies, had absolutely no interest in seeking public office. Instead he relished in parlaying his influence into financial gain and personal prestige.


Samuel Zimmerman was aptly described as “one bold operator.” His various guises included contractor, financier, manipulator, showman, philanthropist, and scamp. Although aggressive and astute, Sam lived life on a grand scale and knew how to temper the hard edge of business with extravagant hospitality.

Niagara Falls Public Library, D10559.

In light of his activities, Zimmerman could perhaps best be described as a thoroughly corrupt and greedy capitalist. Indeed, if he were operating in today’s world that would be a very accurate characterization. But the business environment in late-colonial Canada was altogether different from today’s regulated regime, with its insistence on the separation of political and private interests. Politics were the preserve of the wealthy and wealth was the reward of politics. In an era when a voice in government was limited to only propertied men, nothing different could be expected. With a sense of noblesse oblige they clung to the same presumptions that would later be manifest in the American business adage: “What is good for General Motors is good for the country.” Most Victorian politicians enjoyed a happy symbiosis between their commercial and legislative responsibilities. Indeed, the erstwhile chairman of the Great Western Railway, Sir Allan MacNab, continued to hold a directorship in the line while acting as chairman of the Railway Committee of the legislature. Even while serving as Canadian premier, MacNab continued to openly act in the company’s interests — especially where they coincided with his own.


Before his untimely death, Zimmerman had finished the four gatehouses, the ornamental gardens, and the actual footings of his planned mansion facing the American Falls at Niagara. The gatehouses and stables were built of imported yellow English brick. The stables alone (pictured above) cost $18,000 and lasted until the 1950s, when they were destroyed to permit construction of the present-day Comfort Inn.

Niagara Falls Public Library, D415590.

Many a corrupt man has argued that he was not being any more unscrupulous than anyone else. Certainly many of those whom Zimmerman swindled were players in the same game. Zimmerman stood out simply as a man who played the game better than others! That is not to condone or excuse his perfidy. However, the times were not so corrupt that no one publicly decried the collusion. After all, the victims were not all well-heeled punters. Public money was massively diverted to subsidize railway building and promoters often extorted municipal subscriptions through the simple threat of bypassing a town. These funds were the ones that the promoters, contractors, and legislators divvied up among themselves with such bonhomie. The phrase “railway morality” was coined to describe the unsavoury ethics that distinguished the transportation politics of the day — and this was decades before John A. Macdonald’s government became embroiled in the Pacific Scandal, during the building of the CPR, that so corroded the reputation of post-Confederation Parliament.

Zimmerman could easily be passed off as a venial, conniving miser, but nothing could be further from the truth. Those who knew him found him affable and generous — a philanthropist and a bon vivant. His magical influence was achieved not through coercion so much as persuasion; not by extortion but by subtle gifts and bribes. He also knew well how to “work to contract.” The celebrated Canadian civil engineer Thomas Keefer, although no friend of Zimmerman, wrote about him almost with grudging admiration:

One bold operator organized a system which virtually made him ruler of the province for several years. In person or by agents he kept “open house,” where the choicest brands of Champaign and cigars were free to all the peoples’ representatives, from the town councilor to the cabinet minister; and it was the boast of one of these agents that when the speaker’s bell rang for division, more members of the legislature were to be found in his apartments than in the library or any other single resort!

Not much is known about Zimmerman prior to his arrival in Canada in 1842. He was born the fifth son of a family of seven brothers and one sister on March 17, 1815, in Huntington, Pennsylvania. The family was of German extraction. He was orphaned at some stage and took charge of three younger brothers and sister. The impetus for his remarkable, albeit short, career may lie in having this responsibility thrust upon him. He left school at an early age and worked as a labourer. Although he is credited with having provided for the education of his siblings, little is now known of them. He appears to have been alone when he arrived in Canada with only a grey mare, a buggy, and a dollar or two (or so he frequently claimed). At some point his sister must have joined him, for he arranged her burial at St. David a short while before his own death. A brother, Martin, partnered his Niagara property development — but, curiously, was not listed as a director of the Zimmerman Bank, Samuel’s other Niagara initiative, which he appeared to run for his sole benefit.

On his arrival in Canada, Zimmerman quickly found construction work on the Welland Canal and before long was bidding, with a partner James Oswald, for the job of rebuilding, in stone, several wooden locks in the region of Thorold. He and his partner were quickly recognized as effective organizers, tough masters who brooked no interruption of the work. His success brought a rising income and his natural acquisitive instincts led him, six years after his arrival, to begin making large land purchases on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Travels to England and the continent gave him a taste for fine living. His marriage in 1848 to Margaret Ann, daughter of wealthy Niagara-region businessman Richard Woodruff, perhaps gave him the incentive and improved means to acquire a residence truly reflective of his chosen lifestyle. The marriage, however, was short-lived. Margaret Ann died in 1851, after bearing two sons.

By 1853 Zimmerman owned much of the property in the vicinity of the Falls and pushed the incorporation of the town under the name Elgin, to honour then-governor general, Lord Elgin, who had established his residence nearby. A few years later the town was expanded and renamed Clifton. Later it became the modern city of Niagara Falls, Ontario.

There is no doubt that Zimmerman was the true father of Niagara Falls. In 1856 the Welland Herald claimed: “Perhaps no place in Canada has made such progress in so short a period of time, and I believe in few towns of the same population is there a greater circulation of ready money.” The development of the town typified the Zimmerman approach. Everything was done on a grand scale. Water and gas works were constructed and streets laid out — then he began selling lots. Having purchased Clifton House, a local landmark hotel, Zimmerman proceeded to renovate it so that by the time he was finished the dining room could accommodate three hundred and the ballroom no less than one thousand. The Herald reporter was able to gasp with unrestrained local pride: “A year or two past, we had one grocery store, now about fourteen or fifteen, with upwards of twenty saloons and hotels, some of these equal to any kept in large cities.”

Just how lavish the scale on which Zimmerman lived and entertained was can be judged by a celebrated dinner he gave in honour of his friend, the newly appointed governor of Barbados, Francis Hincks. As inspector general of the Canadian union, it was Hincks who had shepherded the Municipal Loans Act through the legislature. By that act, municipalities were empowered to borrow from the province funds for subscribing to railways running through their districts. That opened up a vast pot of money, making many railway projects viable and offering generous pickings for influential and determined contractors. It was Hincks, too, as Canadian premier until his defeat in 1854, who had been the most influential member of the Board of Railway Commissioners that screened applications for charters. The dinner, given on October 31, 1855, at Clifton House, was one of the ways Zimmerman chose to express his appreciation to so dear a friend. Included in the three hundred-strong men-only dinner guest list were the then-premier, Sir Allan MacNab, and the man who, after Confederation, would become the country’s first prime minister, John A. Macdonald.

End of the Line

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