Medium is the Message

"George P. Colby was born in Pike, New York in 1848 to James L. Colby and his wife Elminia A. (Lewis) Colby. When George was little, the Colby’s settled on 160 acres of land in Forestville Township, Minnesota. The area would later become known as Cherry Grove in honor of George’s father and his orchard of cherry trees.
George lived on the farm with his two brothers and two sisters. Unfortunately, both sisters died at a young age.
During the winter of 1860, when George was twelve years old, he was baptized in a nearby lake so frozen over that a hole needed to be cut in the ice. Although no substantial connection can be drawn between the two events, shortly after George claimed to be visited by the spirit of his uncle who told him he was a great psychic and would later found a great spiritual center in the south.
During his teens George’s mediumship further developed and included clairvoyance, spiritual readings, and healing. He was said to be frequently drawn into trances by personal spirit guides. As many could imagine, this did not please George’s devout Baptist parents, and George was regularly punished and beaten.
In 1867 George broke from the church and began his life as a medium, traveling from state to state performing private readings and parlor séances. During his travels George would accept whatever payment his clients thought was fair, and at times he was forced to take on side jobs in order to survive.
Eventually word traveled of George’s talent and he began to gain some fame as a test medium. It was reported that George would often speak with the deceased relatives of his clients and recall facts with amazing accuracy.
George is said to have communed with several spirit guides: his most prominent was a Native American named Seneca, who he claimed spoke to him during a seance in Lake Mills, Iowa. Seneca told him he was to go on a great journey, but first he must visit the home of T. D. Giddings in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
In Wisconsin George met a Spiritualist named Theodore Giddings and received further instructions. Seneca instructed him to travel again, this time to Florida with the Giddings Family to obtain land selected by the “Congress of Spirits” as a spiritualist center.
So George and the Giddings family went to Jacksonville and later to Blue Springs Landing. From there George left on foot into the piney woods of Volusia County. Just north of modern day Deltona he found the place that would later become the home of the Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association.
Colby was instrumental in acquiring the land for the camp and built a house there, but he did not live there full time. By that time George suffered from very poor health, but the Florida climate renewed him enough that he began touring the country again as a test medium, lecturer and spiritualist leader.
It wasn’t until December 18, 1894 that a charter was formed for the Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp. Two people were vital in forming the association: E.W Bond and Marion Skidmore. Bond supplied materials to build many of the original structures in the camp. Meanwhile, Skidmore was known as “Mother of the Camp.”
Both came from the Lily Dale Assembly, a spiritual camp in New York whom many original Cassadaga Camp members hailed from. In fact, it was Skidmore’s idea to name the camp after the Cassadaga Lakes near the Lily Dale camp. The word Cassadaga comes from the Seneca Indians, meaning: “rocks beneath the water.”
George visited the camp on and off for the rest of his life. He served as the camp’s spiritual leader and lecturer. He put on plays, grew citrus in the area, and he adopted and educated several children during his lifetime.
Colby returned to Cassadaga for the last time in 1933 when his health began to fail. He was provided with a place to live, and the camp members saw to his needs. He died on July, 27, 1933."
-- Medium dot com