Lodge organization[edit]
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.[1]
They also utilized a secret code, sometimes printed in newspapers like the Buffalonian, to communicate orders.[2]
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.
Politics[edit]
The leadership of the Patriot movement appears to have belonged to the small Equal Rights Party (known more popularly as the Locofocos).[4] The small party emerged in 1836 in New York with a platform emphasizing radical republicanism, an end to the "moneyed aristocracy", and "Free Banking".[5] 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).