Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp
Where: Route 60 [map], Cassadaga, Florida, United States
7/19/2007
Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp is the snow bird's answer to upstate New York's Lily Dale Assembly. The town's founder probably got lost on his winter trip to Boca and ended up in Central Florida, connecting people with dead loved ones. According to the Camp's web site:
As a young man from New York, George Colby was told during a séance that he would someday be instrumental in founding a Spiritualist community in the South. That prophecy was fulfilled in 1875, when Colby was led through the wilderness of Central Florida by his spirit guide "Seneca" to an area surrounded by uncommon hills.
About 55 homes sit atop the 57 acres of land that comprise the camp, though the church retains ownership of the land. About 25 of residents are mediums who channel the spirit world in their living room. George (or Seneca) probably came up with the name because Lily Dale has an adjacent Lake Cassadaga. In other Cassadaga trivia, Bright Eyes' Colin Oberst used to hang out in the town and named his seventh album after it.