its name to Port Wakefield, but the stream is always locally called “the creek.”
CREEK or MUSKOGEE (Muscogee) INDIANS (Algonquin maskoki, “creeks,” in reference to the many creeks and rivulets
running through their country), a confederacy of North American
Indians, who formerly occupied most of Alabama and Georgia.
The confederacy seems to have been in existence in 1540, and then
included the Muskogee, the ruling tribe, whose language was
generally spoken, the Alabama, the Hichiti, Koasati and others
of the Muskogean stock, with the Yuchi and the Natchez,
a large number of Shawano and the Seminoles of Florida as a
branch. The Creeks were agriculturists living in villages of log
houses. They were brave fighters, but during the 18th century
only had one struggle, of little importance, with the settlers.
The Creek War of 1813–14 was, however, serious. The confederacy
was completely defeated in three hard-fought battles,
and the peace treaty which followed involved the cession to the
United States government of most of the Creek country. In the
Civil War the Creeks were divided in their allegiance and suffered
heavily in the campaigns. The so-called Creek nation is now
settled in Oklahoma, but independent government virtually
ceased in 1906. In 1904 they numbered some 16,000, some
two-thirds being of pure or mixed Creek blood.
CREETOWN, a seaport of Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 991. It is situated near the head of Wigtown Bay, 18 m. W. of Castle Douglas, but 23½ m. by the Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Railway. The granite quarries in the vicinity constitute the leading industry, the stone for the Liverpool docks
and other public works having been obtained from them. The village dates from 1785, and it became a burgh of barony in 1792. Sir Walter Scott laid part of the scene of Guy Mannering in this neighbourhood. Dr Thomas Brown, the metaphysician (1778–1820), was a native of the parish (Kirkmabreck) in which Creetown lies.
CREEVEY, THOMAS (1768–1838), English politician, son of William Creevey, a Liverpool merchant, was born in that city
in March 1768. He went to Queen’s College, Cambridge, and
graduated as seventh wrangler in 1789. The same year he became
a student at the Inner Temple, and was called to the bar
in 1794. In 1802 he entered parliament through the duke of
Norfolk’s nomination as member for Thetford, and married
a widow with six children, Mrs Ord, who had a life interest in a
comfortable income. Creevey was a Whig and a follower of Fox,
and his active intellect and social qualities procured him a considerable
intimacy with the leaders of this political circle. In
1806, when the brief “All the Talents” ministry was formed, he
was given the office of secretary to the Board of Control; in
1830, when next his party came into power, Creevey, who had
lost his seat in parliament, was appointed by Lord Grey treasurer
of the ordnance; and subsequently Lord Melbourne made him
treasurer of Greenwich hospital. After 1818, when his wife died,
he had very slender means of his own, but he was popular with
his friends and was well looked after by them; Greville, writing
of him in 1829, remarks that “old Creevey is a living proof that
a man may be perfectly happy and exceedingly poor. I think
he is the only man I know in society who possesses nothing.”
He died in February 1838. He is remembered through the
Creevey Papers, published in 1903 under the editorship of Sir
Herbert Maxwell, which, consisting partly of Creevey’s own
journals and partly of correspondence, give a lively and valuable
picture of the political and social life of the late Georgian era,
and are characterized by an almost Pepysian outspokenness.
They are a useful addition and correction to the Croker Papers,
written from a Tory point of view. For thirty-six years Creevey
had kept a “copious diary,” and had preserved a vast miscellaneous
correspondence with such people as Lord Brougham, and
his step-daughter, Elizabeth Ord, had assisted him, by keeping
his letters to her, in compiling material avowedly for a collection
of Creevey Papers in the future. At his death it was found that
he had left his mistress, with whom he had lived for four years,
his sole executrix and legatee, and Greville notes in his Memoirs
the anxiety of Brougham and others to get the papers into their
hands and suppress them. The diary, mentioned above, did not
survive, perhaps through Brougham’s success, and the papers
from which Sir Herbert Maxwell made his selection came into
his hands from Mrs Blackett Ord, whose husband was the grandson
of Creevey’s eldest step-daughter.
CREFELD, or Krefeld, a town of Germany, in the Prussian
Rhine province, on the left side of and 3 m. distant from the
Rhine, 32 m. N.W. from Cologne, and 15 m. N.W. from Düsseldorf,
with which it is connected by a light electric railway. Pop. (1875)
62,905; (1905) 110,410. The town is one of the finest in the
Rhine provinces, being well and regularly built, and possessing
several handsome squares and attractive public gardens. A
striking point about the inner town is that it forms a large
rectangle, enclosed by four wide boulevards or “walls.” This feature,
rare in German towns, is due to the fact that Crefeld was always
an “open place,” and that therefore the circular form of a
fortress town could be dispensed with. It has six Roman Catholic
and four Evangelical churches (of which the Gothic Friedenskirche
with a lofty spire, and the modern church of St Joseph, in
the Romanesque style, are alone worth special mention); there
are also a Mennonite and an Old Catholic church. The town hall,
decorated with frescoes by P. Janssen (b. 1844), and the Kaiser
Wilhelm Museum are the most noteworthy secular buildings.
In the promenades are monuments to Moltke, Bismarck and
Karl Wilhelm, the composer of the Wacht am Rhein. Among the
schools and scientific institutions of the town the most important
is the higher grade technical school for the study of the textile
industries, which is attended by students from all parts of the
world. Connected with this are subsidiary schools, notably one
for dyeing and finishing.
Crefeld is the most important seat of the silk and velvet manufactures in Germany, and in this industry the larger part of the population of town and neighbourhood is employed. There are upwards of 12,000 silk power-looms in operation, and the value of the annual output in this branch alone is estimated at £3,000,000. A special feature is the manufacture of silk for covering umbrellas; while of its velvet manufacture that of velvet ribbon is the chief. The other industries of the town, notably dyeing, stuff-printing and stamping, are very considerable, and there are also engineering and machine shops, chemical, cellulose, soap, and other factories, breweries, distilleries and tanneries. The surrounding fertile district is almost entirely laid out in market gardens. Crefeld is an important railway centre, and has direct communication with Cologne, Rheydt, München-Gladbach and Holland (via Zevenaar).
Crefeld is first mentioned in records of the 12th century. From the emperor Charles IV. it received market rights in 1361 and the status of a town in 1373. It belonged to the counts of Mörs, and was annexed to Prussia, with the countship, in 1702. It remained a place of little importance until the 17th century, when religious persecution drove to it a number of Calvinists and Separatists from Jülich and Berg (followed later by Mennonites), who introduced the manufacture of linen. The number of such immigrants still further increased in the 18th century, when, the silk industry having been introduced from Holland, the town rapidly developed. The French occupation in 1795 and the resulting restriction of trade weighed for a while heavily upon the new industry; but with the termination of the war and the re-establishment of Prussian rule the old prosperity returned.
CREIGHTON, MANDELL (1843–1901), English historian and bishop of London, was born at Carlisle on the 5th of July 1843, being the eldest son of Robert Creighton, a well-to-do upholsterer of that city. He was educated at Durham grammar school and at Merton College, Oxford, where he was elected to a postmastership in 1862. He obtained a first-class in literae humaniores, and a second in law and modern history in 1866. In the same year he became tutor and fellow of Merton. He was ordained deacon, on his fellowship, in 1870, and priest in 1873; in 1872 he had married Louise, daughter of Robert von Glehn, a London merchant (herself a writer of several successful books of history). Meanwhile he had published several small historical works; but his college and university duties left little time for writing,
