The Hunters' Lodge was the last of a series of secret organizations formed in 1838 in the United States during the Rebellions in Upper and

Lower Canada The Province of Lower Canada () was a British colonization of the Americas, British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence established in 1791 and abolished in 1841. It covered the southern portion o ...

. The organization arose in Vermont among Lower Canadian refugees (the eastern division or Frères chasseurs) and spread westward under the influence of Dr Charles Duncombe and Donald McLeod, leaders of the short lived Canadian Refugee Relief Association, and Scottish-born former Mayor of Toronto

William Lyon Mackenzie William Lyon Mackenzie (March12, 1795 August28, 1861) was a Scottish-born Canadian-American journalist and politician. He founded newspapers critical of the Family Compact, a term used to identify the establishment of Upper Canada. He represe ...

, drawing in support from many different areas in North America and Europe. They also absorbed Henry S. Handy's 'Secret Order of the Sons of Liberty' in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

into a Grand Lodge in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

Lodge organization

The Hunters Lodges were modelled on masonic lodges, and adopted similar secret signs, hierarchical orders, and rituals. The four degrees of the Lodge were: Snowshoe, Beaver, Grand Hunter and Patriot Hunter. Soldiers without rank were of the first degree,

commissioned officers An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service. Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer (NCO), or a warrant officer. However, absent c ...

of the second, field officers of the third, and the highest ranking commissioned officers of the fourth degree. They also utilized a secret code, sometimes printed in newspapers like the ''Buffalonian'', to communicate orders. Lodges existed across Vermont, western New York, Ohio and Michigan with particularly active sites being Watertown, Oswego, Salina (now Syracuse), Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit.

Convention and the Republic of Canada

In September 1838, 70 delegates from the western Hunters' Lodges attended a secret, week-long "Patriot Congress" in Cleveland, Ohio. They appointed a provisional Canadian republican government, electing: # President A.D. Smith, "chief justice of the peace at Cleveland" # Vice-President Colonel Nathan Williams, "a wholesale grocer" in Cleveland # Secretary of the Treasury Judge John Grant Jr, Oswego # Secretary of War Donald McLeod # Commander-in-chief of the "Patriot Army of the West," Lucius V. Bierce, "an attorney at Akron," mayor of

Akron, Ohio Akron () is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Ohio, fifth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 190,469 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Akron metr ...

. # Commissary General, a man named Brunson, of Buffalo # Commodore of the Patriot Navy on Lake Erie, Gilman Appleby, former Captain of the '' Caroline'' # Commodore of the Patriot Navy on Lake Ontario, Bill Johnston To fund the war, they formed a joint stock bank, the Republican Bank of Canada, with Secretary of the Treasury John Grant, Jr. as President. They printed bills with pictures of Rebellion martyrs Samuel Lount and James Morreau on them. The official newspaper of the organization was the ''Bald Eagle'' published in Cleveland by Samuel Underhill.

Politics

The leadership of the Patriot movement appears to have belonged to the small Equal Rights Party (known more popularly as the Locofocos). The small party emerged in 1836 in New York with a platform emphasizing radical republicanism, an end to the "moneyed aristocracy", and " Free Banking". The Republican Bank of Canada was formed on this basis. Dr Charles Duncombe was the author of ''Duncombe’s free banking: an essay on banking, currency, finance, exchanges, and political economy'' (Cleveland, Ohio, 1841); and ''Memorial to Congress upon the subject of Republican free banking'' (Cleveland, Ohio, 1841).

References

{{reflist 1838 establishments in Vermont Canada–United States relations Canadian-American history Organizations established in 1838 Republicanism in Canada Secret societies in Canada Upper Canada Rebellion

Lodge organization

Convention and the Republic of Canada

Politics

See also

References