Koreshan

A professor at FGCU who researched Koreshan music is bringing their music back to life.Dr. Thomas Cimarusti, a professor of musicology at FGCU, specializes in 18th and 19th-century Italian vocal music, world music, and public musicology. In 2018, he went to the FGCU archives and found a Koreshan soundbook with just the text. He and a student were able to track down the songs and link the music and text.

While visitors to Koreshan State Park in Estero have often asked whether there was any connection between Cyrus Teed Koresh — the man who founded The Koreshan Unity which called the land home beginning in the early 1800s, and David Koresh — the man who led the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas from the mid 1980s until the group’s fiery demise during an FBI siege gone wrong on their Mount Carmel compound on April 19th, 1993 — the answer was always no, there is no connection between the two and the similarity between their names is purely coincidental. Well, new evidence has come to light that seems to prove there was most certainly a connection of some kind.

While visitors to Koreshan State Park in Estero have often asked whether there was any connection between Cyrus Teed Koresh — the man who founded The Koreshan Unity which called the land home beginning in the early 1800s, and David Koresh — the man who led the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas from the mid 1980s until the group’s fiery demise during an FBI siege gone wrong on their Mount Carmel compound on April 19th, 1993 — the answer was always no, there is no connection between the two and the similarity between their names is purely coincidental. Well, new evidence has come to light that seems to prove there was most certainly a connection of some kind.

This year is the 25th annual Koreshan Ghost Walk. In the late 19th century, a utopian community known as the Koreshan Unity was established in Estero. The…