Samuel Zimmerman (7 March 1815 – 12 March 1857) was a Canadian railway promoter and entrepreneur instrumental in the construction of the Great Western Railway of Upper Canada.

Zimmerman was born in 1815 in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania and worked as a general labourer on various public works projects in Pennsylvania and moved to Thorold, Ontario to help build the Second Welland Canal around 1842 to 1843[1] and settle in the Village Clifton on the Canadian side in the 1850s.

Zimmerman died on March 12, 1857, en route from Toronto to Niagara in Hamilton, Ontario, one of the victims of the Desjardins Canal disaster.

He was survived by his second wife Emmeline Dunn (m. 1856) and sons (John and Richard) from his first marriage.

[1] His son Richard Zimmerman later became a doctor[3] and returned with his Toronto born wife Emma Jane Rogers to Niagara Falls.