All PROPHETS ARE FALSE- The Corvallis Love Cult

I am an admirer of the English philosopher Charles Chaplin, who observed that "Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot”. As an example I now present the life of Franz Edmund Creffeld,  who began life in 1871 with an extreme long shot in the far off kingdom of Germany.

Franz trained for the priesthood but was then forced to leave Germany and the Catholic Church in order to avoid military service. 

He immigrated to the United States, and in 1899 he arrived in the little town of Corvallis, Oregon, wearing the uniform (above) of a lieutenant in the Salvation Army.

Corvallis was (and is) a farming community on the West bank of the Willamette River, about half way between Portland and Eugene. At the turn of the 20th century it was home to nine churches, an Odd Fellows Hall, a Freemasons Lodge and a small core of about 25 adherents to the relatively new Salvation Army. 

The organization was revolutionary. William Booth (above, center) , the Army's founder, often became so possessed by "The Spirit" that he writhed on the floor and babbled in tongues. Also the Army was one of the few social or religious organizations at the turn of the century in which woman could hold respected leadership positions.

Despite these socially advanced elements, by 1903 the 29 year old Lt. Creffeld, was finding the strict doctrine and command structure of the Salvation Army to be too restrictive.  Franz chose instead to build upon his congregation, which contained a majority of women. And alone in the wilderness he  led them off the Salvation Army reservation. 

In the summer of 1903, under Franz's direction and in an act of extraordinary sexual independence for the time, the two dozen female  members built,  with their own hands,  a meeting house on Kiger Island, a 2200 acre wooded sanctuary in the Willamette River, just south of Corvallis.

That summer the sect was bursting with curious women and girls drawn to the power of the handsome charismatic Franz Creffeld's preaching  and the forbidden hints of feminism. His Salvation Army commanders described Lt. Creeffeld’s adherents as “Come-Outers” but they described themselves as “Holy Rollers”.

Come winter the revolution shifted back to town, into the home and family of prominent local businessman and convert, Mr. O.P. Hunt,, Mrs. Hunt, their sons and daughters - particularly their youngest daughter Maude Hunt (above) . Mr. Hunt hung a sign over his front door: “Positively No Admittance Except on God's Business”. The return to town brought increased scrutiny from the unconverted males of Corvallis, and they did not like what they observed. Even less did they like what they suspected.

Rumors told of nighttime naked rambles in the wilds of Kiger Island. And when the wooden sidewalks around the Hunt home were torn up and burned, along with stacks of furniture and piles of kitchen utensils, all to cleanse the Hunt family's soul of the temptation represented by physical property, one of the local newspapers suggested “…a condition bordering on insanity”.

Franz's flock were encouraged to wear old clothes instead of new. Members were discouraged from having contact with family members who were not Creffeld's followers. Indeed, the now bearded Franz began referring to himself as a prophet. He announced that henceforth he was to be called “Joshua II”  It was too much for a good Christian manhood of Corvallis to tolerate.

On the night of 4 January, 1904 a dozen or so self described “white cappers” (adorning themselves in the Klu Klux Klan’s white robes) set upon Franz Creffeld and on Mister Hunt. The pair were dragged to the edge of town. There both men were threatened with tar and feathers. (I doubt they actually applied the treatment since the usual effect of hot tar on human flesh is serious burns, often  resulting in the victim’s death. No such injury was recorded by Creffeld.)

More likely Franz was merely roughed up, frightened and then chased into the woods, where later Mrs. Hunt and Maude were able to find and secretly escort the prophet back to their home. Shortly thereafter the town was appeased by news that “Joshua” and young Maude Hunt (above) had been married. The sexual escapades of “Joshua”, real or imagined, would seemed to have been ended.

Still it was clear that the locals had reached some sort of limit. Although there had never been more than 20 adherents to "Joshua/Franz's sect, a half dozen of his young female followers were committed by their parents to the “Boys and Girls Aid Society” - including O.P. Hunt’s son and his new bride. Others were shipped off to relatives out of state. One or two women were even committed to the state lunatic asylum, in Salem.

A sullen quite catching of breath settled over the town. But that ended in April of 1904 when the Portland police issued an arrest warrant for Franz on a charge of adultery with a young adherent from that town, Esther Mitchel. The aggrieved party was George Mitchel, Esther's elder brother. George  even posted a $150 reward for the arrest of "Joshua".

Franz immediately disappeared, and was not seen again in Corvallis until August, when he was discovered by a young boy. The Prophet Joshua was filthy, nude and starving, hiding beneath the Hunt household. 

Arrested and tried in Portland, Franz was found guilty of adultery and sentenced to two years in the state prison.

And it was upon his arrival there, shaved and bathed,  that we get our first (and only) clear look at the real Franz Creffeld.  He stood five feet six inches tall, and weighed 135 pounds. There is something mystical about his eyes. They were “hypnotic”, glaring defiantly, almost mockingly, into the camera. For the first time you can begin to get a feeling for the power and attraction of this man's lunacy. This was the man all those women were swooning for?

Jail could not restrain or reform Franz Creffeld. He was released, with time off for good behavior, in February of 1906. What he could not know at the time was that he had barely three months left to live.

 Out of jail, Franz immediately reconstituted his flock, especially the Hunt family, who sold their property in Corvallis and used the funds to purchase property near the small town of Waldport, where Alsea Bay meets the Pacific Ocean. 

The Hunt family had deep roots in Waldport, but even here the bizarre practises of Franz's  church caused friction, in particular when a young girl spied several female followers cavorting naked on the beach. And, after one male family member tired to take a shot at him, Franz decided it would be safer to move to the more cosmopolitan Seattle, Washington.

And it was in Seattle, on 7 May, 1906, that Franz (Joshua II) Creffeld and Maude, out for a walk, paused in front of Quick’s Drugstore on First Street. There George Mitchell, convinced his sister Esther had been and was still being violated by the prophet, shot Franz in the back of the head. The prophet died instantly.

George Mitchell was tried in Seattle. His lawyers skillfully put The Prophet's behavior on trial. On 10 July, 1906  the jury came back after deliberating for just an hour and a half. To no one's surprise the verdict was “not guilty”. 

After celebrating for three days, George Mitchell was preparing for a reconciliation meeting with his sister Esther at the Seattle train station, when he was gunned down - by his own sister, Esther Mitchell.

She told the first police to arrive, “Of course I killed George. He killed Joshua the Prophet, didn’t he? What else was there for us to do?” The Seattle Police Chief, Charles Wappenstein, complained, “I wish these Oregon people would kill each other on their own side of the river.”

Esther’s use of the word “us” was correct. Maude had bought the gun and Esther had used it. 

While awaiting trial for this offense. Maude drank strychnine. Her father, O.V. Hunt, arraigned to have Franz’s body exhumed and reburied next to Maude’s.

At her trial for the murder of her brother,  Esther Mitchell was judged to be insane. For three years she survived in the Washington State Asylum at Steilacoom. She was released on 5 April, 1909, and was according to the hospital staff, “thoroughly disgusted with herself”. That diagnosis would appear to have been incorrect. Mr. O.V. Hunt collected Ethe and took her with him back to Waldport. There Esther managed to find some peace, and in 1914 at the age of 26, she married.

But three months later Esther ("X") drank strychnine, just like Maude. It was time for the final fade to black. Except there was to be a sequel.

On 26 March, 1997, outside of San Diego, California, some 40 members of the religious group “Heaven’s Gate”, committed suicide. It was, they believed, the price for a ticket aboard the space ship approaching earth from behind the comet Hale Bop.  About twenty of those deluded unfortunates were decedents of the Franz Creffeld’s movement, who had been recruited from Waldport in September of 1975. Final fade to black.

Fade in a title card, which reads; Tom Stoppard, another Englishman wrote, “The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means”.

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WHO'D A THUNK IT - Queen of Scots births an English King.

I’ll tell you the best Scottish joke in history; Mary Stewart (AKA Queen of Scots), and her husband, Lord Darnley (AKA Henry Stewart), produced a child who became the King of England. That may not seem like a great gag, but you have to remember that she was a fool and he was an idiot and Scotland in the 16th century was the Cleveland of Europe. That their kid becoming a King of England could only happen in an episode of the "Beverly Hillbillies".

Mary was a big girl, close to six feet tall, which in the 16th century made her a freak of nature, sort of like a sunny day in Scotland. She was a granddaughter of Robert the Bruce, and Henry VIII of England wanted her as a daughter-in law. But instead Mary’s mother sent her off to France, where the girl married the future King of France instead. That poor boy died of an ear infection a year after he was promoted to King, and a year later, on 19 August,  1561, the 18 year old widow Mary returned to Scotland, a place she hadn't seen in a decade.

Unlike Queen Elizabeth to her south, Mary bowed under the pressure that she should wed. But the slub she chose in 1565 was her own cousin, Henry Stewart, the Lord of Darnley. Sir Walter Scott, a man who knew something about romance, described Darnley as “…remarkably tall and handsome…but unhappily destitute of sagacity, prudence…(and) extremely violent in his passions.”

Another observer sketched Darnley as “shallow, vain, weak, indolent, selfish, arrogant, vindictive and irremediably spoiled.” And those were his good features.  But, not to worry. He was just Mr. Queen, and she was in charge. 

So why did Mary marry this slub? Well, he was one of the few men in Scotland she could look up to, by a good two inches, they say. And you know what they say about a man with big hands and  feet.

In any case, Lord Darnley did fulfill his role as a royal sperm donor. Mary quickly became pregnant with a son. They named the boy James.

But I suspect that Mary chose Darnley mostly because Queen Elizabeth wanted her to marry Lord Bothwell. He was pure Scotsman,,violent and vulgar. And smart.  And that was reason enough for Mary to choose Darnley.  Mary was always competing with Elizabeth, and she was always losing. And boy did she lose this one. It is a bad idea to choose any mate just because they aren’t somebody else, even if they do have big feet.

That point was driven home for Mary a year later when, one Saturday night, a drunken Darnley and a few of his thugs broke into the Queen’s chambers and right in front of the Queen, who was 5 months pregnant, murdered one of her favorite’s, a little Italian poet named Rizzio she kept around for entertainment. It was as if Darnely smashed her stereo.  When they were finished turning Rizzio into Italian sausage,  Darnley told Mary, “I beg your pardon.” Somehow that failed to convince Mary to ever sleep with him again. Which, it turns out, was a very wise decision. Not to sleep with him, I mean.

Disappointed with his experiment in playing court politics, Darnley returned to his primary occupation of providing employment for every prostitute in Edinburgh and Glasgow, male and female, This task provided him with many hours of diversion and amusement along with a vicious case of syphilis.

I am told people develop syphilitic ulcers on their genitals within three weeks of being infected, and about two months later it develops into the secondary form, with a red rash on their torso, arms and legs, including the palms of their hands and the soles of their feet, accompanied by fever, sore throat, general malaise, weight loss, hair loss and a headache.  Darnley suffered from all of those delightful symptoms, and ended up in a Glasgow room, confined to bed and feeling very sorry for himself.

But when she heard about his condition, Mary did something rather curious; instead of gloating, she journeyed to Glasgow, and nursed Darnley until he was well enough to be brought back to Edinburgh. She even put him up in a little country house called Kirk O’Field right near her favorite church, where she visited his second floor room almost daily, washed his sores and read to him from the bible. Now why would she do that?

It was pretty clear by this time that she despised the schmuck, and she had not said a kind word about him since the Italian sausage-making incident. Either she was a saint or she had a plan. Well, you know what they say about the Scots- they feel badly when they feel good because they are certain they’re going to feel worse the very second they feel better. These people are pessimists supreme. And pessimism about Lord Darnley's health seemed called for.

In the middle of the night of Monday, 13 February,  1567, the little house next to the church blew sky high. Ba-Boom!. The little house was demolished. The rubble even caught fire. And while the neighbors were pouring water on the rubble, what should they discover lying in the courtyard outside the little house, but the bodies of Lord Darnley and his servant.  He was dressed in his nightshirt, and as D-E-A-D  as a doornail. But he had no wounds from the explosion, just a bruise around his throat. He had been strangled. Clearly he had been gotten out of the house, before the explosion.

Interviews with the surviving servants revealed that Darnley had heard men moving about in the rooms below him, rooms normally used by Mary when she stayed over. Darnley had ordered the  servants to open a window and lower him to the ground in a chair.  Unfortunately Darnley had landed right in among the assassins who, instead of waiting for the fuse to reach the kegs of gunpowder stacked in the ground floor rooms, strangled the syphilitic slub. And while the were finishing up, who should slowly descend into their midst, but Darnley's servant. Well, two for the price of one, I guess. They then disappeared into the night before the explosion. The only question left was who did it?

There was no shortage of suspects. There were Darnley’s allies in the murder of Rizzio. Killing Darnley prevented him from spreading their names around when he got drunk. And then there the man who had comforted Mary after the murder of Rizzio, Lord Bothwell. He was just as rich and power hungry as Darnley was, but smarter. Killing Darnley made Mary an available widow again. And then there was Mary, herself

Mary was supposed to have been staying with her husband that night.  Instead, luckily for her, at the last minute she had decided to attend a wedding. Of course, that might have been an alibi. And few would have blamed her, if she had wanted to choke the life out of Darnley, or even blow him up. After all, it was possible Darnley and his buddies had planned on killing Mary the night they  had murdered Rizzio. Or maybe Darnley had just, just wanted Mary to miscarry the child she was carrying. This slub was a big baby, and probably saw the child in Mary's belly as competition. Either way, you could sympathize with the lady, if she had wanted to kill her arrogant, unfaithful, diseased and idiot slub of a husband. But did she do it?

We will never know. Forty days after Darnley’s death, the new man in Mary’s life, Lord Bothwell, conducted a traditional Highland Scottish wedding. He kidnapped the Queen, dragged her off to Dunbar Castle and raped her. Mazal Tov!

A month after this ‘wedding’ the nobles of Scotland rose up, arrested Bothwell and forced Mary to surrender her crown. They then started running Scotland for themselves, in the name of the infant James, of course.  Bothwell died years later, insane, and locked up in a Danish prison. Mary eventually escaped south of the border to England, where Elizabeth had her locked up in one castle after another for the next 19 years.  

Finally, in 1586 Mary got caught conspiring with some politically active Catholics to replace  Elizabeth on the throne of England. That's thing about  Kings and Queens - they are always a  threat until they are dead. With politicians, you just vote them out of office. Anyway,  reluctantly the Virgin Queen signed Mary's death warrant, and the Queen of Scots was executed just 4 days later, on 7 February, 1587.

But even her death turned into a joke. First, it took three slices to kill her.  And when the executioner held her head up as proof of her death, it slipped out of his hands and bounced across the floor. It seems the lady wore a wig to her own beheading.  In any  case the whole thing was a joke since the lady had done nothing but lose her head since she had set foot in Scotland. 

But while the audience was still chuckling over this, Elizabeth died in March of 1603, without an heir.  And by prearrangement,  Mary's son, James VI of Scotland, product of the most mismatched coupling since Lott asked his family to pass the salt,  became James I, King of England. 

Who’d a thunk it?

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A FOOL AND HIS MONEY The Curious Tale of Timothy Dexter

I will now relate the tale of a genius and a fool, a man who inspired a hatred of curious dimensions. Two days after he died, on 22  October, 1806, the Newburyport Herald carried his lengthy obituary, under the headline, “Departed this life, on Wednesday evening last, Mr. Timothy Dexter, in the 60th year of his age — self-styled "Lord Dexter, first in the East."

Continued the obituary; "Born and bred in a low condition in life, and his intellectual endowments not being of the most exalted stamp, it is no wonder that a splendid fortune, which he acquired by dint of speculation….(though perhaps honestly), should have rendered him, in many respects, truly ridiculous….His ruling passion appeared to be popularity, and one would suppose he rather chose to render his name "infamously famous (rather) than not famous at all." His writings stand as a monument to the truth of this remark; for those who have read (him)…find it difficult to determine whether most to laugh at the consummate folly, or despise the vulgarity and profanity of the writer. His manner of life was equally extravagant and singular.”

Timothy Dexter never attended school. He had been set to farm work at the age of eight, and at 16 he became an apprentice leather worker. In 1769, at the age of 29, Timothy Dexter opened his own glove making shop in Newburyport, Massachusetts. A year later Timothy married the widow Elizabeth Frothingham; “…an industrious and frugal woman” who was nine years his senior.

Besides having already given birth to four children, Elizabeth ran a “Hucksters shop”, where she sold second hand items and local produce. After the wedding Timothy moved into her house at the corner of Merrimack and Green streets and opened his own shop in the basement; “…at the sign of the Glove, opposite Somerby's Landing.” There were some in Newburyport who disapproved of the uneducated Timothy Dexter, who were offended by his ambition and ignorance. They noted he drank too much, and spoke clumsily. They scoffed at his luck and were impatient for his fall. They had a long wait.

During the Revolution, Timothy supported the patriot cause. But wartime inflation threatened the life Timothy had built. In July of 1777 a bushel of wheat cost eight Continental dollars. Just a year later it cost almost thirteen. Over the same year a pound of coffee rose from 48 Continentals to 120. It was no wonder then that many holding the shrinking Continentals sold them to speculators at a fraction of their face value, for quick gold, silver Francs or Spanish dollars, or even British pounds. But urged on by the savvy Elizabeth, Timothy gambled on the Continentals. He bought thousands of dollars worth of them, for hundreds. And to the surprise of many, in the “dinner table compromise” of 1790, Congress decided to buy all the outstanding Continentals at face value. It secured the credit of the new nation, and overnight Timothy was made a wealthy man. In fact, at the age of 49, Timothy Dexter was rich enough to retire.

With his new fortune Timothy invested in civic minded projects, like the 1792 Essex Bridge across the Merrimack River. Timothy bought ten shares toward its construction, and was given a prominent place in the opening ceremonies on July 4th. Afterward, he dared to make a public toast; “Ladies and Gentlemen, this day, the 18th year of our glorious independence commences...Permit me, then, my wife and jolly souls, to congratulate you on this joyful occasion. Let our deportment be suitable for the joyful purpose for which we are assembled --- Let good nature, breeding, concord, benevolence, piety, understanding, wit, humor, Punch and wine grace, bless, adorn and crown us henceforth and forever. Amen” Of course, Timothy’s remarks were delivered in fluent French!

It was a harmless speech, made, he supposed, among friends, and Timothy sent a copy of it (translated into English) to the local newspaper. He explained the readers should not be surprised he could speak French because “…Frenchmen express themselves very much by gestures…”. But there were those present who were not Timothy’s friends, who insisted he had made a drunken, rambling and barley coherent speech (in English), and that more educated supporters had improved the English before committing it to ink. Wrote one critic; “He has been regarded as the most marked example of a man of feeble intellect gaining wealth purely by luck.”  It almost feels as if certain members of good standing in the local community were determined that Timothy would be a fool - and were offended whenever he proved not to be.

Then in 1795, when Timothy offered to construct (at his own expense) a public market house for Newburyport. But envious men, and lessor sorts who admired them, voted to reject his offer - with thanks, of course. Stung by the insult Timothy decided to leave town.

He sold the new house on State Street (now part of the public library) and moved to Chester, New Hampshire. His home in Chester (above) still stands and is now "The Dalton Club". But Timothy lived in Chester for only two years. And when he returned to Newburyport in 1798 he was a changed man. Any hesitation for what others thought of him had evaporated. In fact Timothy seemed determined he must remind those who despised him, just why they hated him.

Timothy built himself a most unusual new house on High Street, in Newburyport. “He put minarets on the roof…(and) in front placed rows of columns fifteen feet high…each having on its top a statue of some distinguished man….and occupying the most prominent position were the statues of Washington, Adams and Jefferson, and to the other statues he gave the names of Bonaparte, Nelson, Franklin…often changing (their names) according to his fancy.

In a conspicuous place was a statue of him self, with the inscription, "I am the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western world." All the statues were gaudily painted, and…attracted crowds, whose curiosity deeply gratified the owner, and he freely opened his grounds to them.”

According to John James Currier, in his “History of Newburyport”, Timothy “…would transact no business when intoxicated, and made his appointments for the forenoon, saying he was always drunk in the afternoon.” Timothy took to calling himself “Lord Timothy Dexter”, and had a coat of arms painted on the door of his carriage as if he were nobility. Of course, there were some who missed the joke, and were unaware that  Elizabeth’s maiden name had been “Lord”.  Timothy claimed to have given Elizabeth $2,000 to leave him, and “hired” her back at the same sum two weeks later. He told other visitors that Elizabeth had died and that the "drunken, nagging woman" wandering about the property was her ghost. And then Timothy decided to write a book. He called it “A Pickle for the Knowing Ones or Plain Truth in a Homespun Dress”.

(http://www.lordtimothydexter.com/the_holl_pickle.htm)

The first edition had 8,847 words, no punctuation and was filled with misspellings, but whether that was Timothy's intent or his failure or the printers, is not clear. In any case, that first edition quickly sold out. When the second edition was printed, Timothy added a page of random punctuation marks, explaining, “…I put in a nuf here and (the reader) may pepper and salt it as they please”. 

In his book Timothy claimed to have sold coals to Newcastle (at a profit), warming pans and mittens in the West Indies (at a profit), bibles to the East Indies and stray cats to Caribbean  lands (both also at a profit). None of it was true of course, but anyone with a sense of humor got the joke. Many of his neighbors did not. That year, when a visitor finished a prayer at a meal, Timothy turned to his son and exclaimed, “That was a damn good prayer, wasn’t it, Sam.”

In 1805 Mr, James Akin did an engraving of Timothy as he was often seen about Newburyport, with tri-corner hat and walking cane, and followed by his little dog. It is the only image we have of the man, in his old age.

Timothy Dexter died on 26 October, 1806 at the age of sixty. He left an estate valued at about $36,000. (worth about half a million today.) Elizabeth followed him in 1809, aged 72. Said Timothy’s biographer, Samuel Knapp, " Many who attempted to take advantage of him got sadly deceived. He had no small share of cunning, when all else seemed to have departed from him…In buying he gave the most foolish reasons to blind the seller, who thought that he was deceived, when deceiving.”

The website devoted to honoring Timothy points to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice on living; “Be silly. Be honest. Be kind. For indeed, these were three simple dictates which guided Lord Timothy Dexter.”

And I hasten to note that while the name of Lord Timothy Dexter remains a joke in some corners of the globe, nobody remembers the names of any of the prudish, humorless, ambitious frauds who were offended by him. They ought to have their ears pinned back, 

 

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