Camp Chesterfield was founded in 1891 and is the home of the Indiana Association of Spiritualists, located in Chesterfield, Indiana. Camp Chesterfield offers Spiritualist Church services, seminary, and mediumship, faith healing, and spiritual development classes, as well as psychic readings for patrons.In 2002, the camp was designated a historic district, the "Chesterfield Spiritualist Camp District", and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.HistoryIn August 1925, 14 Camp Chesterfield mediums were arrested on charges of obtaining money under false pretences. The charges were filed by a news service reporter who had spent time investigating the camp.In the 1950s, Don Kemp, later to become one of Indiana's most popular mediums and Spiritualism teachers, began visiting Camp Chesterfield in his quest to learn more about the philosophy of Spiritualism and experience the various forms of spirit communication. He reported having had several experiences of spirit visitation in his younger life and continued his search to understand the phenomenon. Camp Chesterfield had become a hot topic of discussion among the citizens of Indianapolis, both positively supported by those who had attended the camp and criticized by doubters. Kemp's great-aunt, Bertha Jessup of West Virginia, made seasonal pilgrimages to the camp throughout her adult life and invited Don to the camp to come to his own conclusions. They attended a seance where Kemp received five materializations: "I felt the first three visitations weren't authentic but then my brother materialized followed by my Grandma. I knew they were authentic." Kemp's convincing detail was his brother's reference to Don's actual birth date which had always been in dispute with the date printed on his birth certificate.
