Political and militia service Hamilton first held elected office in 1824 as a member of the
Illinois House of Representatives from Sangamon County in 1824. While working in the legislature Hamilton sponsored a bill that imposed a statewide tax intended to fund road repair and maintenance. The tax was proportional to property value, to be paid in labor or money, and replaced an older system which required every able-bodied man to work on the roads five days per year. The bill passed, and the new law was met with much opposition; it was repealed by the next legislature in 1826–27. Hamilton served as
aide de camp to Governor
Edward Coles, and while living in Illinois, first in Springfield and later in Peoria, Hamilton worked for the
United States General Land Office as Deputy Surveyor of Public Lands. In that position he surveyed
Springfield's township. He was also an incorporator of the original
Illinois and Michigan Canal Company, along with Coles and other prominent Illinoisans. In late 1827, Hamilton served during the
Winnebago War in the volunteer
Illinois Militia as a
captain. Hamilton commanded a
company raised in
Galena, Illinois, known as the Galena Mounted Volunteers. Hamilton's company was under the command of
Henry Dodge and was mustered into service on August 26, 1827, and released on September 10, 1827. Hamilton moved to Wisconsin and established
Hamilton's Diggings in 1827. During the April–August 1832
Black Hawk War, between white settlers in the lead mining regions and
Sauk Chief
Black Hawk's British Band, Hamilton again served in the volunteer militia. Accounts of the war indicated that Hamilton was often in charge of the militia's indigenous allies. At the war's onset it was known that many of the
Sioux and
Menominee were eager to join the conflict against the Sauk. Hamilton was sent to the
Michigan Territory, north of
Prairie du Chien, to recruit the assistance of indigenous allies. The result was successful and several parties of U.S. aligned
Native Americans joined the war. In June, Hamilton's return to
Fort Hamilton with a large group of militia-aligned Native Americans coincided with the arrival of one of the survivors of the June 14
Spafford Farm massacre. The survivor, Francis Spencer, arrived at the fort around the same time as Hamilton did - accompanied by U.S. aligned
Menominee. On June 16, about an hour after the fight at
Horseshoe Bend, Hamilton arrived on the battlefield with U.S. aligned
Menominee,
Sioux and
Ho-Chunk warriors.
Wisconsin Territory politics Hamilton (a
Whig) was elected as a member of the
7th Michigan Territorial Council (the "Rump Council" for what was to become the
Wisconsin Territory) from
Iowa County, and served as President for that body's only meeting in 1836. He served in 1842 and 1843 as an elected member of the
Wisconsin Territorial House of Representatives, Hamilton lost an 1843 election for the national-level office of
Wisconsin Territory delegate to the
United States Congress, and in 1848 he lost an election for delegate to the Wisconsin Constitutional Convention. Though well known as a
smelter and miner in the lead region of southern Wisconsin and
northern Illinois, Hamilton, a Whig in a heavily
Democratic region, was unable to achieve the political fame he desired. Two contemporary descriptions of Hamilton's Diggings provide a glimpse into the mining life of Hamilton and the others settled at present-day Wiota. An 1831 account from
Juliette Kinzie noted the unkempt conditions as "shabby" and "unpromising". The other description of early Wiota was provided by Theodore Rodolf in 1834. Rodolf, a one-time political opponent of Hamilton, contrasted the settlement's apparently rough exterior with small, finer details, such as the presence of a
quarto edition of
Voltaire's works, printed in Paris. His mother visited Hamilton at Hamilton's Diggings during the winter of 1837–38. During the same period, Hamilton briefly owned the
Mineral Point ''Miners' Free Press
; he sold it to a group from Galena and the paper became known as the Galena Democrat''. When
gold was discovered in California, in 1848,
gold fever spread into the Midwest lead-mining region. Hamilton set out for
California, arriving in 1849, with high hopes, and new equipment. His life in the west would prove to be a disappointment and he later regretted moving there. Hamilton told a friend in California that he would "rather have been hung in the 'Lead Mines' than to have lived in this miserable hole (California)." ==Personal life; illness and death==