♂Felix Landis

Felix Landis (died between 1737 and 1740) was a yeoman of Lampeter Township in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who held 400 acres on Mill Creek for almost twenty years. When he made his will in April 1737 he left his son-in-law Abraham Miers five shillings “on Acct. of being Married to my Daughter Froneka”, and had Froneka’s share held for her children for as long as Abraham lived. Five shillings was a token sum, and the will does not explain why Froneka’s share was put in trust. He was possibly the sixth great-grandfather of Ora Emogene Walrath (1925–2014), through his son Felix Landis (died 1770).

Mill Creek

A compiled genealogy gives his baptism as 8 June 1673 at Hirzel, Canton Zürich, Switzerland, as the son of Hans Landis and Maria Huber, and identifies him as the immigrant. Felix Landis is said to have come to Pennsylvania about 1717 with his brothers Benjamin and John, Swiss Mennonites who had been driven out of Zurich and had settled near Manheim on the Rhine, and to have been on the first tax assessment of Conestoga Township in 1718. On 19 and 20 February 1718/19 he bought 400 acres on Mill Creek, then in Conestoga Township, by lease and release^W from the London Company of Tobias Collet, Daniel Quare and Henry Gouldney, all of London. He is also said to have built a mill on the tract.

Dividing the land

On 25 and 26 March 1737 Felix and his wife Rosina divided the tract. They sold one half to John Pinkly of Lampeter Township for £100 5s and the other to the younger Felix Landis for £75. Rosina made her mark on both deeds.

A month later, on 29 April 1737, he made his will as “Phelix Lander[s] off the Township of Lampeter … Yeoman” and signed it “Felix Londis”. He left Rosina a full third of his real and personal estate and divided the rest share and share alike between “my only Son Felix” and his daughters Anna, Barbara and Froneka. He named Joseph Buckwalter and Michael Donner as his executors. Felix died before his will was proved at Lancaster on 29 December 1739 or 1740. Both executors renounced, and administration went to his son, “Felix Landis Jun[r]”.

Notes

The Hirzel baptism

The baptism is an entry in the Swiss church records for Hirzel, as transcribed on FamilySearch: Felix, son of Hans Landis and Maria Huber, baptized 8 June 1673. Its identification with the Pennsylvania immigrant is a compiled one. It rests on Wenger and Baumann (2005), the Combined Landis/Landes Genealogy Report, and on Wilcox in Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage 18:1 (January 1995), pp. 13 to 18, both as cited on WikiTree, and on a FamilySearch family tree that attaches the same baptism to him. A Felix Landiss, son of Hans, was buried at Wetzikon on 21 June 1697, and the record gives no age. If the family had moved to Wetzikon, that could be the same man, so the link stays open.

Arrival and the mill

The arrival about 1717, the three brothers, the Swiss and Rhineland background, the 1718 assessment and the mill all come from D. B. Landis, The Landis Family of Lancaster County (1888), pages 12 to 15, a family history; no record of the time states them. A typescript history of the Binkley family (1951), citing Rupp’s lists of immigrants, gives 1719 for the arrival instead. The same 1888 book says Felix received a patent for the Mill Creek land in 1719-20 and granted part of it to “John Binckle” in 1731; the deeds date the purchase February 1718/19 and the sale to John Pinkly March 1737. A later Landis family book (1950) also has the north half of the tract going to John Binkley in March 1737, so John Pinkly of the deed is most likely John Binkley.

The deeds and the will

The two sales of March 1737 are known from published abstracts of Lancaster County Deed Book A, which give Rosina as “Rosanah” and her husband as “Felix Londus”. A deed of 2 December 1747 (Deed Book B, pages 497 to 499) recites the sale to the son: “the said Felix Landis Deceased in his life time and Rosannah his Wife” had released to “Felix Landus the Son one Moiety or half part of the said four hundred Acres”. The will is in the Lancaster County will book for 1730 to 1773, pages 59 and 60. The probate gives the day, 29 December, but the year has to be worked out: the account was due “att or Before the 29 Day of December … 1740”, which points to 1739, though 1740 cannot be ruled out.

His son Felix

The will names one son, Felix. A Pennsylvania act of 14 February 1729/30 naturalizing settlers of Lancaster County lists “Felix Landas, Junior”, so the son was of age and holding land by then. In the 1747 deed the son, then of Lebanon Township and married to a wife named Mary, sold his half of the Mill Creek land to Jacob Donner of Lampeter. That fits Felix Landis of Derry Township, who died in 1770 and whose will names a second wife Mary, and he was most likely the same man. No record names the younger Felix’s mother.