Here’s an interesting oddity: a town founded by and for Spiritualists:
Colby did as was instructed, along the way making friends with a medium named T.D. Giddings, and he would continue to receive guidance during his numerous sessions with the spectral Seneca, told that they would find a place “on high pine hills overlooking a chain of silvery lakes.” In this way, the spirit guided him to a place near the remote settlement of Blue Springs, Florida, a plot of around 35-acres that was near seven wooded hills and Lake Helen and pronounced to be the location of the spiritual camp floating through his visions. Colby and the entire Giddings family would then sign a deed for the land and move in to set up homesteads on what was at the time merely a backwoods feral expanse of trees and scrub brush. Interestingly, it was found that the waters of the nearby lake and spring had healing powers, and Colby would later claim that this water from the local springs had cured him of a case of tuberculosis.
Word soon got out about the healing properties of the springs, and that the famous “seer of spiritualism” and his medium friends had taken up residence here, and lo and behold other mediums and spiritualists began to trickle in, setting up their own humble abodes on this land, and the settlement that would be called The Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp was birthed, with “Cassadaga” being the Native word for “water beneath the rocks,” and the name chosen for a lake of the same name near a similar camp in New York called the Lily Dale Assembly. At first it was mostly a winter retreat for spiritualists, but more and more people began to move in permanently, until by the 1920s it had became an actual town and a major center of spiritualism in the United States, with the size of the camp gradually blossoming to 57 acres and attracting mediums and mystics from all over the country and eventually the world.
And naturally it’s haunted:
Interestingly, Cassadaga has not only gained a reputation as being the spiritualist capital of the world, but also as being one of the most haunted places in Florida. One of the most infamous of the town’s haunted buildings is the Cassadaga Hotel, which maintains a distinct roaring 1920s vibe and is said to be prowled by a ghost named Arthur. This particular spirit is said to enjoy dragging furniture around, flicking lights on and off, and sitting by the windows of the hotel, and he apparently leaves the odor of gin and cigar smoke in his wake. Another famous haunting is at the town’s cemetery, which is even said to have an ornate, old fashioned haunted chair called “The Devil’s Chair,” and there have been numerous apparitions seen here, as well as at the lake. The whole town in general is known for producing a wide array of ghostly phenomena, and this is said to be due to its position over a vortex that allows travel between the physical world and the spiritual.
I’m sure the The Devil’s Chair must a seat of such obvious evil that-
That looks less like a throne for The Prince of Darkness than something you would make because you had a bunch of bricks left over after building a BBQ grill.
Anyway, Cassadaga is about 30 minutes SW of Daytona Beach off I-4…
(Hat tip: Don Webb’s Facebook page)
