♂Felix Landis

Felix Landis (baptized 1 June 1589 – died about 1642) was a member of the Anabaptist^W church of the Horgerberg, in Canton Zürich, Switzerland. He was possibly the eighth great-grandfather of Ora Emogene Walrath (1925–2014), through his son Hans Landis, baptized in 1630.

Horgerberg

He was probably the Felix Landys baptized at Horgen, Canton Zürich, on 1 June 1589, a son of Hans Landys and Margreth Hochstrasser. His father is said to have been the Anabaptist preacher Hans Landis^W, who was beheaded at Zürich in September 1614 for his faith. Felix is said to have lost his first wife, Margaretha Strehler, in January 1629 and his second, Magdalena Haas, that August.

Felix Landis and Adelheid Egli were married by November 1630, when their son Hans was baptized at Hirzel on 21 November. A household list of Hirzel from 1633 is said to show the couple with Hans and a younger daughter, Maria.

Oetenbach

For his faith Felix was committed to Oetenbach^W, a former nunnery in Zürich that was then a prison. According to the Martyrs Mirror^W, as quoted in a Landis family history of 1888, he was treated there with shameful rigor and often given no food, until long fasting had so damaged his stomach that it could no longer keep food down, and he prepared himself for death. In that state his persecutors carried him into church during the sermon and threw him under a bench, where he died at once. He is said to have died about 1642.

Adelheid was also held at Oetenbach, for nearly four years, and treated without mercy and with indignity: she was put in irons and for a time had her clothes taken from her every night. She escaped from the prison. Meanwhile the authorities broke up the family, sent the children away among strangers, and seized the house and furniture, which they sold for 5,000 florins.

Notes

The baptism and the household of 1633

The baptism is an entry in the Swiss church records for Horgen, as transcribed on FamilySearch: “Felix Landys”, son of Hans Landys and Margreth Hochstrasser, 1 June 1589. Its identification with the Felix of the prison account is a compiled one: D. B. Landis, The Landis Family of Lancaster County (1888), pages 10 and 11, calls him “son of Hans, beheaded at Zurich, 1614”, and WikiTree’s profile of him follows the same line. The 1633 household list of Hirzel is known only as WikiTree quotes it; it gives Felix’s age as 50, which would put his birth about 1583, six years before the baptism. The two earlier marriages and their dates come from WikiTree, which takes them from an ancestor list compiled by Syz-Hegetschweiler.

The son Hans

The Hirzel church records, as transcribed on FamilySearch, give the baptism of Hans, son of Felix Landis and “Adelheit Eglin”, on 21 November 1630; WikiTree gives 22 November.

The prison account

The account of Felix and Adelheid at Oetenbach comes from the 1888 Landis family history, pages 10 and 11, which quotes the Martyrs Mirror; WikiTree cites the same book at page 1120. The 1888 book gives no year for his death, and the date of about 1642 comes from WikiTree. Neither says when Adelheid escaped.

The line to Pennsylvania

The descent from Felix rests on compiled links. The Pennsylvania settler Felix Landis is identified with the Felix baptized at Hirzel on 8 June 1673, a son of Hans Landis and Maria Huber, only by compiled genealogies. A Felix Landiss, son of Hans, was buried at Wetzikon on 21 June 1697, with no age given, and he could be that same child. The link from Barbara Landis (1739–1812) to her father is also only possible, so the whole line stays open.