Israel Landis

Israel Landis was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on October 17, 1808, one of five sons in a family often. His father was a merchant and Israel clerked in the store until he was eighteen and then undertook to learn the saddle and harness trade.

In 1833, at the age of twenty-five, he determined to go west. He landed in St. Louis, then a town of six thousand, with $30 in his pocket. He invested in the necessary material and set up a harness business. Over the next eight years he built up a profitable business which he sold out in 1841 and with the proceeds purchased a farm eight miles from St. Louis. He lived at the farm until 1844 when he removed to the newly established town of St. Joseph and opened a small saddle and harness shop. He began business in a house on the west side of Blacksnake Creek. In the spring of 1845 he moved east to Main Street, between Felix and Francis, to a frame house he rented. Later he moved to the west side of Main Street. When Mr. Landis arrived there were two one-story brick buildings built by Joseph Robidoux, one at Fourth and Felix, the other at Fourth and Edmond Streets. The population, when he arrived, was about five hundred and his early business of about $3,000 a year grew as the town expanded rapidly. The enormous traffic of the California bound gold seekers, after 1849, brought him prosperity and he became active in real estate dealing.

In 1857 he built the large brick store building on the southwest corner of Fourth and Felix Streets which was occupied by R. L. McDonald & Company. In partnership with Simeon Kemper and Reuben Middleton he laid out the twenty acres for the use of Mt. Mora Cemetery. He later bought out his partners and in 1881 sold the property to the Mt. Mora Cemetery Association. In 1860 Mr. Landis made some of the saddles used by the riders of the Pony Express. He was an active member of the first City Council of St. Joseph. Mr. Landis married in 1836, in St. Louis, Miss Sarah Stibbs. She was born in Berkshire, England, in 180g and at the age of sixteen came, with her parents, to Brooklyn, New York. They moved to St. Louis in 1834 where Miss Stibbs and her three sisters established the St. Louis Female Institute, a school for young ladies. After moving to St. Joseph in 1844, Mrs. Landis established the St. Joseph Female seminary which the daughters of many leading St. Joseph families attended. A few small boys, whose sisters were in the school, were occasionally accepted for a few years.

There were five children: John C., Benjamin F., Mary E., Anna Stibbs, and Lila. Mrs. Sarah Stibbs Landis died July 17, 1891, and Israel Landis on April 12, 1893, at the age of eighty-five.