Benjamin Franklin Landis

Benjamin F. Landis, son of Israel Landis, was born near St. Louis, February 24, 1840. He was associated with his father in the manufacture of harness and saddles. He designed saddles and saddle bags for the Pony Express in 1860 and was present when the first rider left St. Joseph on April 3. He was the inventor of a waxing device which made possible the sewing of leather with waxed thread by machine. In 1887 he was appointed by the Governor of Missouri as Assessor of Buchanan County. He married Miss Katherine Morrison and they had five daughters.

His daughter, Jeanette ("Nettie") Landis, was born in St. Joseph September 11, 1869. She was musical as her mother had been. She studied voice in London and Paris, sang at Covent Garden in London, and was invited to sing before Queen Victoria. The tradition is that she sang the words of Eugene Field's Little Boy Blue, which reduced the Queen to tears. She married in 1892 Lawrence O'Neill Weakley of St. Joseph. They had five sons and two daughters: Lawrence, Jr., William Beattie, Francis, Charles, Benjamin, Virginia, and Janet. Lawrence, Jr., had a son, Jim Weakley, who established a clothing business in St. Joseph. William Beattie married Catherine Dameron of Clarksville, Missouri; and Charles Enright attended the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, became a vice-admiral, and was in command of the Atlantic Fleet's anti-submarine warfare forces during World War II.