♂Felix Landis

Felix Landis (died 1770) was a miller and yeoman of Derry Township, then in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who held land on Spring Creek and the Swatara Creek in the 1750s and 1760s, and whose will, written in German, could not be copied into the county’s will book. He was possibly the fifth great-grandfather of Ora Emogene Walrath (1925–2014), through his daughter Barbara Landis (1739–1812).

Land

On 14 February 1729/30 the Pennsylvania assembly passed an act “for the better enabling divers inhabitants … to hold lands” which naturalized “Felix Landas, Junior” of Lancaster County, who appears to have been this Felix. A deed of 1747 recites that in 1737 the late Felix Landis and his wife Rosannah had granted half of their 400 acres at Lampeter to “Felix Landus the Son”, apparently the same man. On 2 December 1747 Felix Landis, yeoman of Lebanon Township, and his wife Mary released 200 acres to Jacob Downer of Lampeter.

He was most likely the Felix Landis who paid tax in Lebanon Township in 1750 and 1755. By July 1757 he and John Gerber were both of Derry Township, where James Galbraith had sold them two tracts on Spring Creek, one of 53 acres beside Galbraith’s mill and one of 187 acres; on 11 July the two men mortgaged both tracts to Galbraith for £1,459. On 21 March 1761 Galbraith sold Felix 372 acres on the Swatara Creek in Hanover Township for £1,000. Less than two years later, on 9 February 1763, Felix Landis, miller, and his wife Mary, who made her mark, sold 178 acres of that land, with a further 8 acres, to Melchar Rham of Hanover Township for £612 10s. John Gerber was one of the witnesses.

Family and will

By December 1747 his wife was Mary, whom his will calls his second wife. Barbara Landis, who married Henry Light of Lebanon Township in 1759, was possibly his daughter by an earlier wife, who is said to have been named Catherine. Felix made his will on 25 January 1770. It was written in German and so could not be recorded in the county’s will book; only the proof was entered there. It named Mary and five children, but the surviving abstract names only two of them, Felix and Jacob. He chose Peter Gertz, John Kauffman and John Saylor as his executors, and Saylor declined to act. Felix died before 3 May 1770, when the will was proved at Lancaster and he was described as “late of Derry Township”, a yeoman.

Notes

His daughter Barbara

A Mennonite family card for Henry Light names his wife, Barbara Landis, as a daughter of Felix and Catherine, and Felix Landis of Derry Township fits her by time and place: the abstract of his will calls Mary his second wife, so he had married before, and three of his five children go unnamed in it. No record of the time names Barbara as his daughter. The Felix Landis of Lampeter Township who died by 1740 also had a daughter Barbara, but she was of age by then, and Henry Light’s wife was born in 1739. The Lebanon Township tax lists of 1750 and 1755 that carry a Felix Landis also carry a John Light, and the same family card makes Henry Light the son of a John Light.

The man in the deeds

His land dealings are known from published abstracts of the Lancaster County deeds. The Felix Landis of Derry Township who sold land in 1763 is called a miller there, and his wife’s name, Mary, is the name of the second wife in the will of 1770; the abstract adds that she is called both Mary and Elizabeth in that deed. The abstract of the 1757 mortgage dates Galbraith’s sale of the Spring Creek land to Felix Landis and John Gerber 10 July 1747, ten years and a day before the mortgage. A history of Berks and Lebanon counties published in 1844 prints the Lebanon Township tax lists of 1750 and 1755; a Felix Landis is on both, close to a John Gerber, which makes it likely that he is the man who held land with Gerber in Derry Township.

His origins

He was probably the son called “my only Son Felix” in the will of Felix Landis of Lampeter Township, written “Phelix Lander[s]”, which was dated 29 April 1737 and proved on 29 December 1739 or 1740. That will also named a wife, Rosina, and daughters Anna, Barbara and Froneka, and administration of the estate went to the son Felix, who was therefore most likely of age by then. The 1747 deed recites the 1737 conveyance from the late Felix and his wife Rosannah to “Felix Landus the Son”, so if that son is this Felix, the deed names his father as Felix and his mother as Rosannah, where the will of 1737 gives the wife’s name as Rosina. The identification rests on the names and on the Lebanon Township of 1747; no record of the time names this Felix’s father outright.

Naturalization

The act of 14 February 1729/30 is printed in volume 4 of the Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801 (1897), chapter 309, page 148. Its Lancaster County list names “Felix Landas, Junior” beside other men, and the act says they had “purchased [and do hold] lands”. “Junior” suggests the father was still living in 1729/30. The identification with this Felix is probable: this was the only Felix Landis family in the county, and D. B. Landis’s The Landis Family of Lancaster County (1888), a compiled family history, makes the same identification.

Deed wording

The 1747 deed writes his name “Landus” and names Mary as his wife, but it does not give the date of the marriage.