Editing Upper Canada (section)

====Welland Canal====

The Welland Canal was created to directly link Lake Erie with Lake Ontario, bypassing Niagara Falls and the Erie Canal. It was the idea of [[William Hamilton Merritt]] who owned a sawmill, grist mill and store on the [[Twelve Mile Creek (Ontario)|Twelve Mile Creek]]. The Legislature authorized the joint-stock Welland Canal Company on 19 January 1824, with a capitalization of $150,000, and Merritt as the agent. The canal was officially opened exactly five years later on 30 November 1829. However, the original route to Lake Erie followed the Welland and Niagara Rivers and was difficult and slow to navigate. The Welland Canal Company obtained a loan of 50,000 pounds from the province of Upper Canada in March 1831 to cut a canal directly to Gravelly Bay (now [[Port Colborne, Ontario|Port Colborne]]) as the new Lake Erie terminus for the canal.<ref>{{harvp|Craig|1963|pages=153–160}}</ref>

By the time the canal was finished in 1837, it had cost the province £425,000 in loans and stock subscriptions. The company was supposed to have been a private one using private capital; but the province had little private capital available, hence most of the original funds came from New York. To keep the canal in Upper Canadian hands, the province had passed a law barring Americans from the company's directorate. The company was thus controlled by the Family Compact, even though they had few shares. By 1834, it was clear the canal would never make money and that the province would be on the hook for the large loans; the canal and the canal company thus became a political issue, as local farmers argued the huge expense would ultimately only benefit American farmers in the west and the merchants who transported their grain.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Aitken|first=Hugh G.T.|title=Yates and McIntyre: Lottery Managers|journal=The Journal of Economic History|year=1953|volume=13|issue=1|pages=36–57|doi=10.1017/S0022050700070030|s2cid=153540099 }}</ref>