We have a new Outdoors Timber Ridge and the cargo storage is a black 1 inch tubular steel rod about 3 or 4 feet long. Looks like it could be used as a jack handle but didn't get the jack so just aski...
Our Timber Ridge came with two crank handles mounted in the front pass-thru, one for the stab jacks and one for the tongue jack in case they couldn't be operated electrically. But neither one sounds like what you describe.
Our Weight Distribution Hitch (WDH) came with a lever to lift the bars up that sounds similar to what you describe, but it was not 3-4 ft long. Max 2 ft.