Hunters' Lodges

The Hunters' Lodge was the last of a series of secret organizations formed in 1838 in the United States during the Rebellions in the Canadas. 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 Scotland native William Lyon Mackenzie, 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 into a Grand Lodge in Cleveland.

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 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 that included:

# 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.
# 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).

See also

* Frères chasseurs

References

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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