Summary: We had dinner again at Alvah's and then dinner the next night with Jack Hayes. On Tuesday we went to the Koreshan State Historic Site.

Sunday, December 4th: We went over to Alvah's for dinner. We got to visit with Bob and Andrea Thom, as well as Alvah's sister, Marcie, and her husband, Charlie. Charlie & Marcie lived in Florida years ago, but moved to Virginia to be near their son and his children. They were visiting their other son in Florida, his family and staying with Alvah. We had one of Alvah's great BBQ rib dinners (yum-yum).

Monday, December 5th: We had another nice relaxing day and then went to meet Jack & June Hayes for dinner at Snug Harbor. We had a great visit with them.

Tuesday, December 6th: We went exploring again today. We had driven by and checked out the Koreshan State Historic Site about a week earlier, but we didn't have time to really explore it. Well, we finally got a chance to go back. This was a really interesting place.

In 1869, Dr. Cyrus Teed had a "divine illumination". In his vision, Teed believed that all spiritual life was unfolded to him by a divine deity. Preaching his new religion, Teed and a group of followers eventually settled in Chicago. In 1894, Teed moved his group to Florida with the hopes of building a settlement for 10 million people (there were only 250 maximum). Teed, who had taken the biblical name "Koresh", planned to construct his "New Jerusalem" at Estero. He had hoped it would become a great city where people could come to practice his religion of Koreshanity. The Koreshan Unity was founded upon the ideas of communal living and property, the belief in Dr. Teed's religious and scientific theories, and the communistic goal of everyone working for the good of all.

They must have been like one of the religious cults we have around today. Those who joined the Unity were celibate (families were broken up; men in the men's dorm, women in the women's dorm & children in the children's dorm), required to live in the Unity Settlement, give their property to the Unity and work for the building of the New Jerusalem. Dr. Teed's "scientific theory" was that instead of the world being round with us living on the outside, we lived on the inside. He claimed the earth was a hollow sphere with all life contained in it.

Dr. Teed said that the sun, moon, planets, and stars were just an illusion, as they are, actually, reflected up from the surface. Day and night were thought to be caused by a rotating ball of gases, at the center, sending a positive charge down from the light side and reflecting a negative charge back to the dark side. This acted like an electric motor and kept the day and night cycle spinning. The earth was said to have a diameter of 8,000 miles and a circumference of 25,000 miles with the concave surface bending upward at the rate of 128 inches every 4-1/3 miles. It was not possible to see from one side to the other across the sphere because the "3 atmospheres" were too dense. The earth's shell was supposedly 100 miles thick and made up of 17 layers--5 inner layers of geological strata, 5 mineral layers in the middle, and 7 outer metallic layers.

I got some pictures of a globe showing his theory. He even conducted an experiment on Ft. Myers Beach to prove his theory. He "proved" it, but we suspect his instruments or the way he conducted the experiment must have been flawed (because he was obviously wrong). We were also able to visit several buildings still standing, some restored, at the Settlement. These were very industrious people. They had a couple machine shops, an art hall, school, gardens, bakery, laundry, etc. The Koreshans eventually died out, especially after the pictures taken of the Earth from space, and the last 4 members donated 305 acres of land to the state in 1961.

We got some pictures of some of the old buildings. The Planetary Court was where the governing body of the Unity lived. There were 7 women & 1 man (to protect them) living in the Planetary Court building. The old Damkohler House from 1882 is still standing. This is the only structure on the property when Dr. Teed arrived. Gustav Damkohler donated 320 acres to Dr. Teed to build his settlement. Later he lost faith in Dr. Teed and sued to get his land back (he got 1/2 of it back in the legal settlement).

We also got a picture of Carl at the Conrad Schlender Cottage (1903) with the Florida Wood Frame Vernacular architectural style. This means the roof was steeply pitched to shed rain quickly, and the siding vertical to allow for run-off. The ceilings were open beam allowing the summer heat to rise, and doors and windows were placed across from one another to allow for cross-ventilation. There was a large (1904) and small (1905) machine shop. We didn't get a picture, but the small machine shop has a bowed roof with a unique, curved shape. They also had an electric generator building (1908) that housed, naturally, the electric generator. Surprisingly (at least to us), they supplied electricity to the nearby town until the current Florida Electric Co. came in to provide the electricity.

The Art Hall (1905) contained several paintings by Dr. Teed's son as well as a model of the earth on the inside of the globe.

This was definitely a very interesting area!! Can you imagine all those people giving up their safe and comfortable life of a big city, giving all their wealth to Dr. Teed and beginning a new life in a hot, humid, bug-infested wilderness?? Not us!!! We like adventure, but there are limits.