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Ancestors of Jesse Landes
There has been disagreement among researchers interested in the Landes families of Hardy, Grant, and Pendleton Counites in West Virginia regarding the parents of Jesse Landes (1809 - 1894):
You can read about those disagreements here.
There are some threads that may lead to confusion and you can read about those here.
For the purpose of this page, we will proceed with the assumption based on definitive proof that the parents of Jesse Landes were John Landes (1776 - ca. 1855) and Elizabeth Peacock Landes (dates unknown at this time).
John Landes was the eldest child of Jacob Landes (1740 - ca. 1810) and Fanny Ruddick (1743 - ?). Fanny was Jacob's second wife.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Jacob and Fanny moved to the South Branch Valley of what was then VA (now WV) as early as 1788 (Bittinger, p. 108). Jacob may have been a Brethren minister; Bittinger writes that he, along with others, "were important influences in building up and conserving the congregation...", referring to the Brethren Church that had been established in the South Branch Valley near South Mill Creek (p. 109).
The reasons Jacob Landes and family settled in the South Branch Valley are complicated and have to do with the general migration south and westward at that time. These and other reasons for establishing Brethren Congregations in the area are explained in detail in Allegheny Passage by Emmert Bittinger (see below).
Jacob and Fanny had 16 children of which John was the oldest. Jacob died in 1811 but did not leave a will. Also there were debts probably due to two notes that Jacob had made in order to originally purchase the land. An executor, Jacob Sites, was appointed to settle the estate, but by 1832 the estate remained unsettled, so the children of Jacob sued in the Circuit Court of Hardy County. John Landes was appointed to mange the suit and eventually it was settled in 1833 and the land was divided between the 16 children. Shortly afterward all but two of Jacob's children left the area and moved westard to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The children that remained in the South Branch Valley were John Landes and his younger brother Abraham (1809-1899).
Jesse Landes (1809 - 1894) was the eldest of John and Elizabeth Peacock Landes' children. See here for a list of John and Elizabeth's children, and John and Catherine Buckly Landes' children (Elizabeth died and John remarried).
Emmert F. Bittinger, Allegheny Passage, Penobscot Press, 1990.