How did Landisville, Pennsylvania get its name? This page provides a brief history about the naming of Landisville after the Landis family, the people who settled it, and the industry rising within it.
Village on the line between Buckingham and Plumstead Townships, on Pine Run a mile northeast of Dyerstown and on a road running from Route 611 near Dyerstown to Durham Road (Route 656). This is an old settlement and, as may be inferred by its name, was so called for the Landis family. Members of the family are very numerous in Bucks, Lancaster and Montgomery Counties. There is some evidence from which to infer that the family is French in origin, but its history can be authentically traced back no further than to the year 1488, when the Landis homestead, still occupied by a Jacob Landis, was built at Hirzel, Switzerland, twelve miles up the Rhine from Zurich. Later some members of the family migrated to Germany. The Landis family of America was founded by three brothers, John, Benjamin and Felix, who came to this country from the German Palatinate in 1717. John, patriarch of the Bucks County branch, settled in Milford Township, and from there the descendants spread over parts of Bucks, Northampton and Montgomery Counties. Many members of the family were millers. Abraham Landis, probably a grandson of John, the immigrant, bought the old Spring Valley grist mill in 1783 from the executors of John Clemens. Jacob Landis, a joiner, perhaps a brother of Abraham, also at that date owned part of the original Spring Valley mill tract. Abraham owned the mill for one year, then sold it and it is believed moved to the upper part of Buckingham Township and bought a large tract of land covering the site of present Landisville. He either built a grist and flax mill or bought one already in operation. The land and mill were still in possession of the Landis family in 1850. Ulysses G. Strouse bought the mill in 1892 and operated it until 1931, when it was torn down. Farther up Pine Run, but on the Landis property, was an old saw mill of uncertain date but in operation as late as 1850. Years ago a blacksmith and wheelwright shop supplied local needs in that line.
Near the village was a small white stone building adjoining the Mills farm, in which a little band of Orthodox Friends from Plumstead Monthly Meeting gathered after the separation of 1827. The building was probably erected about 1830 and was taken down twenty years ago. It occupied land once a part of the large Dyer tract and later successively owned by the Beans family, Christian Myers and Newberry Mood.1 Little is known of the history of this meeting house. Application for a village post office was made before 1897, but the move was delayed by the refusal of the Post Office Department to accept the name Landisville because Lancaster County had an office of the same name. On October 31, 1897, however, the petition was granted and the office was named Ely for the first postmaster, Nathan Ely. The post office has been discontinued and the villagers are now served by rural delivery. Though it was Ely post office, the name of the village itself seems to have undergone no change.
- Information of Mrs. Harry Myers, Doylestown. [↩]