We Live Inside! The Koreshan Connection to Edison and Ford
By Alice Rolston, Curatorial Assistant
The Koreshan Unity was a religious utopian community in the late 19th to early 20th century that was founded in upstate New York by Cyrus Teed. The Unity later had its headquarters in Chicago before moving to a 320-acre plot of land in Estero, Florida where Dr. Teed intended to start the “New Jerusalem.” Although unsuccessful in this endeavor, the Koreshan Unity still made a lasting impact on Southwest Florida.
While Cyrus Teed professed to his followers that he discovered the power of faith healing while he was a doctor during the Civil War, records show that Dr. Teed served the Union in the Civil War not as a doctor or medic, but in the infantry as a Corporal. Before the war, Cyrus was an apprentice of his uncle who was a surgeon. After the war, he went on to study a theory of medicine that was popular during the Victorian era, eclectics. Someone who practices eclectic medicine takes different techniques from various ideological camps of medicine. Similarly, Dr. Teed took different popular ideas from various religions to start his own, blending the principles of eclectics with pseudoscience and mysticism. Like his cousin, Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, Cyrus Teed had invented a new religion in the Victorian era.
Dr. Teed claimed that during late-night experimenting in his lab in October of 1869, he was able to achieve the main goal of alchemy: turning lead into gold. After he accomplished this task that he could never replicate, a feminine spirit appeared to him and said she was the god of the bible. She explained to him that she was both male and female, a biune god. Teed claimed that this spirit explained to him that he was the last in the line of prophets and a reincarnation of the prophet Cyrus from the Old Testament. This is why he called himself Koresh, the Hebrew translation of Cyrus.
Koresh preached to his followers that the Earth is an enclosed sphere that contains the entire universe. This, he said, was because God would not make the universe too complicated for people to understand. According to Dr. Teed, the Earth was like an eggshell that contained the entire universe and humanity lived on the inside of this shell. His idea of a concave or hollow Earth is where the Koreshans got their most famous slogan, “We live inside!” often accompanied by “Drop in and see us!” It was in Southwest Florida that the Koreshans sought to prove the hollow Earth. Koreshan Ulysses Grant Morrow led the project of measuring along the coast of Florida to prove that the earth curved upwards, not downwards as it would if the earth was a sphere.
The Koreshan Unity placed great importance on the social aspects of communal living. The Koreshans hosted numerous events that were open to the local community, such as concerts, festivals, art shows, and theatrical performances. The most widely known of these events were the Solar and Lunar Festivals which were considered religious holidays for the Unity. The Solar Festival was a celebration of Cyrus Teed’s birthday on October 18, while the Lunar
Festival celebrated his divine counterpart, Victoria Gratia (also known as Annie Ordway) on her birthday in April.
Koreshanity was more popular with women than men due to their belief in gender equality. Women shared the same duties as men and were treated as equals in the community. Skills and interests determined labor duties instead of gender. This was unique in the Victorian era where women were more commonly seen as the property of their husbands. Koreshans would also protect those women members who had left their husbands to join the Unity. The Koreshan governing body, the Planetary Court, was made up of seven highly educated women. Koreshanity gave women work opportunities and leadership roles that would have been unavailable to them otherwise.
Koresh obtained a 320-acre plot for his socialist utopia by converting homesteader Gustav Damkohler. In 1893, the Unity had paid Mr. Damkohler just $200 (about $6,931 today) for 300 acres of his land but when he converted to Koreshanity, he gave the Unity his remaining 20-acres that he intended to reserve for his son. All Unity members had to turn over their worldly possessions, including furniture, jewelry, land and money.
The Koreshans were anti-capitalists who pulled all of member’s funds together to provide for the Unity. Although Cyrus Teed preached that capitalism was evil, the Unity welcomed capitalists Henry Ford and Thomas Edison to their utopian community when they wintered in Fort Myers. Both Thomas Edison and the Koreshan Unity had an interest in exotic plants. While the Koreshans had a keen interest in growing plants that could help them create their paradise, Edison was looking for plants that would be useful in his experiments. It is believed that some of the bamboo on the Koreshan property was grown from a gift by Edison. The Edisons also attended shows at the Koreshan Art Hall. Mina often visited the Koreshan’s Rustic Tea Garden, which she said was one of her favorite places to have lunch. Once, Thomas and Mina Edison became stranded at the Unity during a heavy storm. It is said that the Unity fed them and gave them shelter until the storm passed.
Henry Ford was interested in the town that the Koreshans had built in Estero due to his own ambition of creating a tropical utopia on his rubber plantation in Brazil. Ford had established Fordlandia in Brazil and hoped that the Unity would have insights into thriving in the tropics. It is said that Ford especially loved the Koreshan’s papayas. Looking for a super food to feed the children of Fordlandia, he had some of the their papayas sent to his lab in Dearborn, Michigan for experimentation.
The number of Koreshans declined steadily with the death of Cyrus Teed in 1908. They believed that upon Koresh’s death, his spirit would flow into Victoria Gratia’s body and together they would become a mother-father god. While the Koreshans waited for that to occur, they kept Dr. Teed’s body in his bathtub for five days until the health department insisted that he be removed from the house. The Koreshans built their messiah a mausoleum that said “Cyrus, Shepard, Stone of Israel” on Ft. Myers Beach. This mausoleum was guarded 24 hours a day until it was destroyed in a hurricane on October 25, 1921.
The Koreshans believed that celibacy was the only path to immortality, so the they relied exclusively on recruitment to grow in numbers. By the time Thomas Edison died in 1931, there were only 55 Koreshans remaining. In 1961, the last four members deeded 305 acres of their land to the state so that today the Koreshan Unity is a historic site and state park.
America’s First Mail Order Seed Company
By Karen Maxwell, Horticulture Programs Coordinator and Horticulture Specialist
With the summer heat, most Floridians are looking forward to the arrival of fall. It is this time of year that we can once again revel joyfully and productively in our gardens, envisioning a bountiful winter harvest. This is also the time of year to purchase seeds.
If you have spent the summer wondering where the idea for seed packages originated, this article is for you! Let me take you for a short journey down the road from our summer camp in Maine (“camp” is what any self-respecting Mainer calls their lake house or lake cottage) to the last active Shaker Village in the world. Officially known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, or Shakers for short, this once thriving sect of nearly 6,000 individuals is down to two; brother, Arnold and sister, June.Ironically, the last one standing was once considered the poorest and smallest of the 19 Shaker communities.
The Shaker diaspora began in 1776 when Ann Lee, an Englishwoman, brought her group of followers to create their first colony in New Lebanon, NY. Shaker settlements would soon appear throughout New England and as far south as Kentucky. Nearby to our camp, the Sabbathday Lake Village was established in New Gloucester and Poland, Maine in 1794. Called Shakers for their ebullient dancing, this religious group broke from Calvinists and are beholden to a strong theology of nature. Their ethics for stewardship of nature includes three basic tenets: 1.) Nature is God’s handiwork; 2.) Nature is good because it is useful; and 3.) Nature is the companion that binds a social community with an ecological community.
As such, the Shaker Village of Sabbathday Lake consists of 1,600 acres and was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1974. The Shakers were not apocalypticists – these Millenialists were not doomsday believers, in fact they embraced technology, firmly believing that there was no virtue in hard manual labor if human intelligence was able to find a way to abbreviate or reduce stressful labor. It was this attitude that enabled the Shakers to create flat brooms, metal pens, many farm tools and even the circular saw which they employed in the manufacture of their iconic furniture.
Their most profitable invention redefined horticultural practices in early America and that was mail order seed packets! Brother, Joseph Turner of the Mount Lebanon Village in New York is considered America’s first seed salesman (1794). David Landreth would soon follow with packaged zinnias in 1798. While the Shakers originally traded their seeds as part of their industrious commerce with outsiders, they soon realized that to set aside land specifically to grow seeds would yield great monetary rewards.
At the Sabbathday Lake village, the concept of creating small envelopes complete with growing instructions, which they called “papers” were displayed in handmade oval wooden boxes, and they created the first seed catalogs. Shakers peddled the seed packages on routes throughout the Northeast. From 1800-1880, their mail-order seeds were often the only source available to rural, pioneering Americans. The Shakers took immense pride in the quality of their seeds; if the buyer didn’t accept that the seeds were not warranted, they were to be returned immediately. It was this belief in their superior products that brought about the demise of The Shaker Seed Company when around 1890 they refused to lower their prices to remain competitive.
The Sabbathday Lake Shakers wanted more property in Alfred, Maine, which was about 50 miles away. To entice the owner, Jabez Ricker, to part with the desired land, the Shakers suggested trading some of their vast estate in Poland, Maine which was situated adjacent to the busy Portland, Maine. In 1845, the Shaker’s new neighbor, Jabez Ricker, founded the Poland Spring Water company – and yes, the original source is still there, on that very land.
Over the years, the Shakers and the Poland Spring Resort enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship – the Shakers sold their vegetables, fir balsam pillows, maple syrup, and so many flowers to the guests that they needed to build a greenhouse. The Shakers even milled the lumber and built the early wooden crates for Poland Spring bottled water distribution.
What’s next for the world’s remaining Shakers? Ultimately, their vows of celibacy cannot promise them a future and today their magnificent agricultural property is communally owned by Brother, Arnold and Sister, June – backed by a trust to the state of Maine to ensure the property remains as is, in perpetuity. A number of volunteers and employees operate and sustain the property today.
While still maintaining extensive orchards and farm animals, the Shakers continue to grow and market herbs. More than six acres are dedicated just to growing herbs, which are packaged and sold on site and via mail order. In one of the Village pictures, a building is being lifted in preparation for a new foundation. Along with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the last remaining Shaker community is in the process of creating a world-class Herb Cultural Center which will house over 8,000 square feet of production space, teaching and meditation space.
We hope you will visit our Garden Shoppe and Museum Store, where a wonderful selection of packaged seeds awaits you.
