The Koreshan Unity Settlement was a colony of Christian utopian communalists who settled in Florida in the 1890s.
In 1869, a young man in New York named Cyrus Teed, who had served as a surgeon during the Civil War, had a religious “illumination” and became an itinerant preacher, with a message of communalism, equality of all humans, and education as the way to personal betterment. Moving to Chicago, he attracted a group of followers and in 1883 they formed the Koreshan Unity church, taking their name from the Hebrew version of “Cyrus”. In 1894, Teed conceived a project to build a “New Jerusalem”, an ideal new community which would live under his religious laws and light the way for humanity. To place it as far as he could from the corrupting influence of the world, he moved all of his followers to Florida. Settling near Ft Myers, they soon made a new convert, Gustav Damhokler, who donated a large chunk of land along the Estero River to the church.
Teed’s plans were grand. After painstakingly clearing the land of palmetto and swamp, he laid out his “Koreshan Unity Settlement” in the shape of a cross. In his dreams, this holy city would grow to shelter millions and would spark a peaceful revolution of social justice and harmony.
As the acknowledged spiritual prophet, Teed was the unquestioned leader, who laid out all the religious rules. There were two distinct classes of members. The Cooperative Order was mostly commercial and consisted largely of local people. They either purchased a share of the commune’s economic enterprises (which included farming, cattle ranching, a bakery, a publishing house and a general store) or worked in them part-time. They were allowed to live in their own homes away from the commune. The Koreshan Unity members, however, were not only required to live on the site, but were also required to remain celibate the whole time they were here (though members were allowed to bring along any children they already had). The commune was governed in day-to-day affairs by an elected “Planetary Court”, composed only of women, who lived in a large apartment house set aside for them.
Since the commune members were forbidden to reproduce, maintaining the population in the “New Jerusalem” was rather difficult, and the settlement shrank steadily until the last resident, Hedwig Michel, died in 1982. Upon her death the land was donated to the State of Florida, which now maintains about a dozen of the original buildings as a historical site.
Some photos from a visit.
For those who don't know, I live in a converted campervan and am traveling around the country, posting photo diaries of places that I have visited. :)