Edmund Creffield
German-American cult leader
Franz Edmund Creffield, commonly known as Edmund Creffield and by the pseudonym Joshua (c. 1870–1906), was a German-American religious leader who founded a movement in Corvallis, Oregon, that became known locally as the "Holy Rollers". The movement, mainly popular among women, was widely regarded as a cult. Creffield, who believed himself the second coming of Jesus, had a number of run-ins with the authorities and the local citizenry over the next several years, often stemming from his relations with his female followers and his increasingly erratic behavior.
In 1906 Creffield was murdered by George Mitchell, whose sister was one of Creffield's followers. After being acquitted of wrongdoing in the killing, Mitchell was himself murdered by his sister in revenge, with another follower's subsequent death by suicide. The story attracted national attention and was major news for a time in the Pacific Northwest.
Life
Franz Edmund Creffield was originally from Germany; it is unclear how he came to Oregon or even what year he was born, with both 1867 and 1873 being mentioned in sources. There are some indications that Creffield and his family had emigrated to the United States sometime around 1884.
Contemporary sources speculated about Creffield being a deserter from the German army and places his arrival around 1900.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5339395. VIAF identifies the subject as 50168158. The Library of Congress control number is n2001112212. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1870, 1906, 1867 and 1873.
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This entry incorporates text from “Edmund Creffield” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.