served as a laborer and supply storeman, and participated in the capture of a confederate flour wagon being smuggled into Petersburg, Virginia during the siege of Richmond. Crowdy remained in the Army after the war to become a Buffalo Soldier. He was promoted to quartermaster sergeant in the 5th Cavalry in 1867, receiving his discharge in 1872 . He later became a cook on the Santa Fe railroad. Religious life Crowdy settled in Guthrie, Oklahoma after his retirement from the railroad. He became a deacon in the local Baptist Church and an active member of the Prince Hall branch of Freemasons. In 1893 Crowdy's behaviour became ”strange”; for example, he was not always aware of people talking to him ”but would sit staring for long periods of time”. He claimed to have had several visions in which he was told "that Black people were descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel." He proceeded to create the Church of God and Saints of Christ and is regarded as a founder of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement. He started preaching in Guthrie, and then set up Tabernacles in Emporia and Lawrence, Kansas in 1896. In these early days he was arrested 22 times. After setting up another Tabernacle in Topeka, he spread his creed in Sedalia, Missouri, Chicago, and several cities in New York, establishing an Elder-in-Charge in each city before moving to the next. In 1903, he bought of land in Suffolk, Virginia, calling it "Canaan Land". More land was subsequently purchased by Bishop William H. Plummer and this is now the international headquarters of the denomination. In 1905 he sent missionaries to South Africa and by 1906 he declared Chief Joseph W. Crowdy, Bishop William H. Plummer, and Elder Calvin S. Skinner as future leaders of his congregation. Shais Rishon, a Black Orthodox Jewish writer and activist, has claimed that Crowdy was "A southern baptist who never belonged nor converted to any branch of Judaism." Death William Saunders Crowdy died on August 4, 1908, in Newark, New Jersey and was buried in Newark, New Jersey. His body was later exhumed and buried in Belleville, Virginia. References 1847 births 1908 deaths 19th-century American slaves 19th-century American theologians 19th-century evangelicals 20th-century African-American people 20th-century American theologians 20th-century evangelicals American evangelicals American Prince Hall Freemasons Black Hebrew Israelite religious leaders Evangelical theologians Founders of new religious movements People from Charles County, Maryland