Editing Hunters' Lodges

{{short description|Secret U.S.-based militia formed during the 1837 Canadian rebellions}}
{{Campaignbox Upper Canada Rebellion}}

The '''Hunters' Lodge''' was the last of a series of secret organizations formed in 1838 in the United States during the [[Rebellions of 1837|Rebellions]] in [[Upper Canada|Upper]] and [[Lower Canada]]. 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 (Upper Canada Rebellion)|Charles Duncombe]] and Donald McLeod, leaders of the short lived Canadian Refugee Relief Association, and Scottish-born former Mayor of Toronto [[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, Ohio|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.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kinchen|first=Oscar|title=The Rise and Fall of the Patriot Hunters|url=https://archive.org/details/risefallofpatrio0000kinc|url-access=registration|year=1956|publisher=Bookman Associates|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/risefallofpatrio0000kinc/page/55 55–58]}}</ref>

They also utilized a secret code, sometimes printed in newspapers like the ''Buffalonian'', to communicate orders.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Documents: The Hunters Lodges of 1838|journal=New York History|year=1938|volume=19|issue=1|pages=67–70}}</ref>

Lodges existed across Vermont, western New York, Ohio and Michigan with particularly active sites being Watertown, [[Oswego (town), New York|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''' [[Abram D. Smith|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]].
# '''Commissary General''', a man named Brunson, of Buffalo 
# '''Commodore of the Patriot Navy on Lake Erie''', Gilman Appleby, former Captain of the ''[[Caroline affair|Caroline]]''
# '''Commodore of the Patriot Navy on Lake Ontario''', [[Bill Johnston (pirate)|Bill Johnston]]<ref>{{cite book|last=Kinchen|first=Oscar|title=The Rise and Fall of the Patriot Hunters|url=https://archive.org/details/risefallofpatrio0000kinc|url-access=registration|year=1956|publisher=Bookman Assoc.|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/risefallofpatrio0000kinc/page/38 38–9]}}</ref>

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 [[Locofocos|Equal Rights Part]]y (known more popularly as the Locofocos).<ref>{{cite journal|last=Bonthius|first=Andrew|title=The Patriot War of 1837–38: Locofocoism with a Gun?|journal=Labour/Le Travail|year=2003|volume=52|pages=9–43|doi=10.2307/25149383|jstor=25149383 |url=https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/LLT/article/download/5308/6177|access-date=2018-02-20|archive-date=2016-09-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160927013538/https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/LLT/article/download/5308/6177|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref>  The small party emerged in 1836 in New York with a platform emphasizing radical republicanism, an end to the "moneyed aristocracy", and "[[Free Banking]]".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schrauwers |first=Albert |date=2017 |title=Tilting at Windmills: The Utopian Socialist Roots of the Patriot War, 1838-1839 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44820371 |journal=Labour / Le Travail |volume=79 |pages=53–80 |doi=10.1353/llt.2017.0002 |jstor=44820371 |issn=0700-3862 |access-date=2022-04-20 |archive-date=2022-04-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220420054922/https://www.jstor.org/stable/44820371 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> The Republican Bank of Canada was formed on this basis. Dr [[Charles Duncombe (Upper Canada Rebellion)|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==
* [[Patriot War]]
* [[Frères chasseurs]]
* [[Secret society]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:1838 establishments in Vermont]]
[[Category:Canada–United States relations]]
[[Category:Canadian-American history]]
[[Category:Organizations established in 1838]]
[[Category:Republicanism in Canada]]
[[Category:Secret societies in Canada]]
[[Category:Upper Canada Rebellion]]