Hamilton was born in New York, where he attended the United States Military Academy before he resigned and moved to Illinois in 1817.

[4] William was a month shy of his seventh birthday in 1804 when his father was killed in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr.

[3] Hamilton first held elected office in 1824 as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from Sangamon County in 1824.

[3] 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.

Hamilton was sent to the Michigan Territory, north of Prairie du Chien, to recruit the assistance of indigenous allies.

The survivor, Francis Spencer, arrived at the fort around the same time as Hamilton did - accompanied by U.S. aligned Menominee.

[12][14] 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.

[15] Dodge also reported that the allied warriors then proceeded onto the battlefield and mutilated the corpses of the fallen Kickapoo.

[18] Kinzie also decried the foul language from the miners, whom she called the "roughest-looking set of men I ever beheld.

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.

He suffered multiple symptoms, including dysentery, and, according to his doctor, died from "malarial fever resulting in spinal exhaustion terminating in paralysis superinduced by great bodily and mental strain.