Why did so many Victorian-era women become Koreshans, at one point comprising almost eighty percent of the Koreshan Unity membership? Was it the lure of Teed’s new religion that promised immortality, or were other factors at play? Women were regarded as little more than the property of their husbands for much of history. In Teed’s […]
Beginning in the 1880s, the Koreshan Unity Settlement, with its fundamental beliefs in equity between men and women, took up the banner of woman’s suffrage with numerous newspaper articles, public speaking events and theatrical performances addressing the topic of equity for women. In the photograph with this post, a group of Koreshans perform a play […]
In 1894, something extraordinary was happening along the banks of Mosquito Creek in what is now known as Koreshan State Park. Dr. Cyrus Teed had sent down the first group of his followers from Chicago to clear land and begin building what would be the foundations of his vision of a religious-utopian community called the […]
In 1862 at the age of twenty-two, a young medical student named Cyrus Teed enlisted in the Union Army and joined the New York Infantry of the New York volunteers. In 1863, by then a Corporal, Teed was assigned to Brigade Headquarters where he served as special aide to acting General Woodford. Some sources indicate […]
The Koreshans brought culture and industry to Southwest Florida. They owned and operated many businesses in the Historic Settlement, including a machine shop, general store, bakery, post office and school. For more than a quarter century, Koreshan State Park and Friends of Koreshan have offered guests a view of the life and times of Dr. […]
On an autumn evening in 1869, while experimenting with a mysterious force called electricity, 30-year-old Cyrus Teed had a vision he would later call his Illumination. The spirit of God came to him in the form of a beautiful woman in gold and purple robes who carried the Mercury’s Caduceus. This “God-spirit” told Teed the […]
Dr. Cyrus Teed (AKA Koresh) envisioned his Koreshan Unity would someday have ten million members, and Estero Florida would become the capital of the world. Painter and sculptor Moses Weaver, a unity member, created a painting of Teed’s vision of a New Jerusalem, which now hangs in the Art Hall. In the painting, there are […]
The seven women known as the Seven Sisters ran the day to day business affairs of the Koreshan Unity in the late 1800s and early 1900s. At this time in history, women were not involved in business, but Koresh (Cyrus Teed) believed in gender equality and placed these women in positions of authority. The Seven […]
The Koreshan Laundry House was built in 1903 in the Industrial Area of the park, where the entire settlement’s laundry could be washed and dried in only one day (11 hours). All of the Unity laundry was done at the laundry house. There were between five and seven staff members. The laundry building contained three machines. […]
Why Dr. Teed believed the Earth was hollow and we live inside it. THE KORESHAN WORLD Beliefs, about the nature of God and the nature of the Universe, were very important to the Koreshans in later years. Their vision of the world is a set of religious/pseudo-scientific beliefs put forth by Dr. Cyrus Teed, founder […]
