William Wesley "Bill" Hiltz (2 November 1872 – 26 February 1936) was

Mayor of Toronto The mayor of Toronto is the head of Toronto City Council and chief executive officer of the municipal government. The mayor is elected alongside city council every four years on the fourth Monday of October; there are no term limits. While in ...

from January 1924 – January 1925. During his term, he introduced time clocks for

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

city workers. He was also a member of the

Orange Order in Canada The Grand Orange Lodge of British America, more commonly known as the Grand Orange Lodge of Canada or simply Orange Order in Canada, is the Canadian branch of the Orange Order, a Protestant fraternal organization that began in County Armagh in Ire ...

. He had a son and grandson, with the same names.

Ancestry

Hiltz descended from the Hilts families that immigrated to the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

around 1710 presumably from the Palatinate region of

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because of the wars and famine. The family farmed on the Burnetsfield Patent in

Herkimer County, New York Herkimer County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 60,139. Its county seat is Herkimer. The county was created in 1791 north of the Mohawk River out of part of Montgomery County. It is named a ...

. During the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

in 1779, Joseph Hilts was brought as a small child by his grandfather, Joseph Petrie, who was forced to flee to the

Province of Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirteen p ...

, settling in the

Niagara Peninsula The Niagara Peninsula is an area of land lying between the southwestern shore of Lake Ontario and the northeastern shore of Lake Erie, in Ontario, Canada. Technically an isthmus rather than a peninsula, it stretches from the Niagara River in the ...

in Louth Township. Joseph Hilts' sons later received land grants, with William Hilts receiving one in Esquesing Township, and Edward Thompson Hilts receiving one in Erin Township.

Early life

Hiltz was born and raised in Erin at Ballinafad, attending

Georgetown District High School Georgetown District High School or better known as GDHS is a high school located in Georgetown, Ontario, Canada. The school is under the jurisdiction of the Halton District School Board. As of the 2019–20 school year, approximately 1,500 studen ...

Georgetown, Ontario Georgetown is a large unincorporated community in the town of Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada, in the Regional Municipality of Halton. The town includes several small villages or settlements such as Norval, Limehouse, Stewarttown and Glen William ...

and Brampton High School in

Brampton Brampton ( or ) is a city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. Brampton is a city in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and is a List of municipalities in Ontario#Lower-tier municipalities, lower-tier municipalit ...

. He married Annie Laidlaw on

Christmas Day Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...

in 1899. He began his career as a

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

, eventually becoming principal of

Weston Collegiate Institute Weston Collegiate Institute (Weston C.I., WCI, Weston) is a Grade 9 to 12 public high school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was formerly known by its previous names of Weston Grammar School, Weston High School, Weston High and Vocational School ...

in 1899, and in 1901 assistant principal of the Hamilton Street School (now known as Queen Alexandra Middle School). Around that time, he became a building contractor and real estate developer, and quit teaching in 1906 to go into business full-time. During this transition, he had been known to take his students out to the construction sites to dig foundations by shovel. After developing and building over 400 stores and houses east of the

Don River The Don ( rus, Дон, p=don) is the fifth-longest river in Europe. Flowing from Central Russia to the Sea of Azov in Southern Russia, it is one of Russia's largest rivers and played an important role for traders from the Byzantine Empire. Its ...

by 1920, his real estate properties made him the second-highest taxpayer in Toronto behind

Timothy Eaton Timothy Eaton (March 1834 – 31 January 1907) was an Irish businessman who founded the Eaton's department store, one of the most important retail businesses in Canada's history. Early life and family He was born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Hi ...

, the founder of

Eaton's The T. Eaton Company Limited, later known as Eaton's, was a Canadian department store chain that was once the largest in the country. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an immigrant from what is now Northern Ireland. Eaton's grew ...

. Hiltz was the Danforth Methodist Church superintendent of the largest Methodist

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in Canada. He was also a leading advocate of the

temperance movement The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emph ...

and was a member of the

Loyal Orange Lodge The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants, particularly those of Ulster Scots heritage. It als ...

Political career

During his term as mayor, he actively opposed

Adam Beck Sir Adam Beck (June 20, 1857 – August 15, 1925) was a Canadian politician and hydroelectricity advocate who founded the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. Biography Beck was born in Baden, Upper Canada (now Ontario) to German i ...

's plans for a network of Hydro radial lines and instead, he was instrumental in getting plans approved for the construction of an elevated railway

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide v ...

in the downtown core -which assured the final opening of the new

Union Station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...

. Hiltz's opposition to Hydro radial lines led to their rejection and also to his defeat in the following mayoral election. Hiltz died in 1936 at age 63.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hiltz, William W. 1872 births 1936 deaths Mayors of Toronto People from Wellington County, Ontario