In
my research there are countless stories of courage, faithfulness, resistance,
and perseverance among the early Swiss Anabaptists. Among them stands Durss
Aebi, a Täufer Lehrer—Anabaptist teacher—whose stubborn conscience and
spiritual conviction defied the most powerful government in Switzerland. Though
some American families today trace their lineage to him, his life belongs to
the broader history of the movement and to anyone who values steadfastness in
the face of oppression.
Childhood
in Ober‑Kneubühl
Durss
was born about 1610 in Ober-Kneubühl, a small hamlet tucked into the upper
Emmental region of the Canton of Bern, Switzerland. He was the eldest of eight
children born to Ulrich and Elsi Aebi. Although no records of his childhood can
be found, the history of the area during that era allows us to imagine what his
early life would have been like. Homes and barns were built of massive square timbers
designed to withstand the brutal alpine winters. Families lived in multi-generational
households, so he likely lived not just with his parents, but with his
grandparents and aunts and uncles as well.
Although
many families in the region farmed. The
Aebis were millers, grinding the local spelt and rye into flour. His childhood would have been shaped by the
thundering splash of a waterwheel, the clacking of wooden gears, and the
rhythmic grinding of heavy millstones. Unlike farm children who saw few
outsiders, a young Durss would have seen everyone. Farmers from across
the Sumiswald hills would have come to the mill to turn their grain into
life-saving flour. He would have heard the adults swapping local gossip,
complaining about the Bernese government's taxes, and debate theology while
waiting for their grain to be processed. His chores would have shifted from
minding cows to mechanical and strenuous work. He would have included lifting
heavy grain sacks, managing the water gates, and maintaining the mill’s complex
mechanics.
As millers, the Aebi family would have likely
been more financially stable than tenant farmers. They would have kept a
percentage of the grain they milled, giving them better bread and it would have
given them a bit more coin to buy items like imported iron tools or fine cloth.
But it also meant visits from government inspectors who regularly checked the
weights, monitored the millstones, and collected the Republic's cut. Durss
would have learned early on that the state was a constant, punitive force
always watching over his family's livelihood.
A
Region Under Watch
In
1525, the government outlawed all non‑Reformed religious practice and ordered
the arrest of Anabaptist teachers and their followers who rejected infant
baptism and state control over faith. Many were imprisoned, executed, or
martyred. But by the 1600s, the Emmental—including the hills around
Sumiswald—was fast becoming a covert stronghold for the Anabaptist movement. Because Bernese authorities viewed this
religious non-conformity as a direct threat to civil order, communities like
Ober-Kneubühl lived under a cloud of growing political tension.
By
1610 the region had transitioned to the absolute authority of the Republic of
Bern and it strictly enforced adherence to the Swiss Reformed Church. The lives of the local people revolved around
the parish church of Sumiswald where births, marriages and deaths were
meticulously recorded. (Much of the Aebi
family history survives today because of these records.)
Because
people constantly came and went to the mill, it was the perfect place for
traveling Anabaptist teachers or neighbors smuggling forbidden books and
letters related to the forbidden teaching of the Anabaptist faith. Growing up
in such a place, an impressionable young boy could easily gain exposure to
radical, forbidden spiritual ideologies--right under the state inspectors’
noses!
Enduring
Tragedy Together
While
our story about Durss focuses on his affiliation with the Anabaptist movement,
his life began in the Swiss Reformed Church with his parents and family. The earliest traces of Ulrich Aebi and his
family come directly from the official Sumiswald parish church books, proving
they cooperated with the state church. It is not known why and how Durss and
his family became Anabaptists, but his conversion must have been a defining
event of his adult life rather than an inheritance from his father.
When
Ulrich died in 1630 at the young age of 47 his wife, Elsi, had died six years
earlier at the age of 34), their children were left without
the guidance of their parents, but it also left them in a precarious legal
position. In Bern at this time, legal
adulthood wasn't reached until age 21 or 25. At age 20, Durss was not yet
legally an adult, and his younger siblings would have been assigned official
state-appointed guardians. If they tried to divide or sell the mill, the state
guardians would have taken a large portion, and the family would have lost
their livelihood. To prevent the ruin of the family estate, the siblings had to
stay together and run the mill. The brothers would have had to handle the heavy
mechanics: hoisting 100-pound grain sacks, maintaining the water gates,
sharpening (dressing) the heavy millstones, and managing the intake of
grain from local farmers. Running a mill
also meant running a hospitality and bookkeeping business. Farmers often waited
hours or days for their turn; they needed to be fed. The sisters would have had
to manage the massive hearth, the large vegetable gardens, and the family's own
livestock, while keeping the mill's ledger books balanced.
Seven
months after his father’s death, Durss married Elsbeth Aeschlimann. Instead of
establishing a new household, he brought Elsbeth into the mill, where she
stepped into the role their mother had once held. Under Swiss custom, the
siblings formed a legal property community, pooling the profits and living from
the same kitchen. Since Ulrich and Elsi died young, the mill became the anchor
that held the orphaned Aebi children together. Durss bringing his new bride
Elsbeth into the mill in 1631 was the first step in stabilizing the family
business, ensuring that the siblings could survive, work, and successfully
launch their own adult lives from the safety of the family trade.
Convention
Before Conviction
Records
show that throughout the 1630s and early 1640s, Durss remained a fully
participating member of the Swiss Reformed Church. All four of his children--Andreas born in
1631, Elsbeth born in 1635, Anna Barbara born in 1641, and Maria born in
1643--were recorded into the parish church books at birth. In the early winter
of 1645 Elsbeth died at the age of 32, leaving him to care for his children who
were between the ages of 12 and 2. He
married Margret Steiner the following year. Nothing in his early adulthood
suggests Durss’s conversion to the rebellious religious subversion that was to
follow; everything points to a conventional, law‑abiding miller raising a young
family.
By
the time the bailiff of Trachselwald Castle finally arrested 60-year-old Durss and his wife
in October 1670, he had become more than just a quiet
convert. The court documents specifically label him a töüfferischen
ertzlehrer—an arch-teacher of the Anabaptists. This would indicate that during the 1650s and
1660s, Durss had hosted secret meetings, preached, and solidified his role as a
leader within the underground church network—likely using the traffic and
privacy of his mill to coordinate the movement.
His
arrest in 1670 was the moment that the Bernese government realized just how
influential he had become. “For a long time, they had been looking for me
and my wife Margret Steiner from Oberdiessbach,”said grandfather Durss, as
recorded in the official court records of his interrogation. “Again and
again we escaped the persecutors, often only at the very last moment. However,
we were powerless against the extensive and systematic raids of the Anabaptist
man-hunters paid by Bern in the summer of 1670.”
His
eldest son, Andreas, tried to secure his release after they were taken into custody,
but he was arrested as well. Eventually Durss, Andreas and 16 members of their
family were stripped of their property and banished in November 1670, taking up
residence in Helmstadt, Germany.
long time. Because when I was arrested for the first time in
1670 because of my Anabaptist convictions and imprisoned here in Trachselwald
Castle, I was no longer the youngest at the age of 60. Over the years I was
given more and more tasks in our Anabaptist community. At that time, many
people in the Bern region longed for a better life, for more freedom and
justice, for a dismantling of grievances in politics, society and the church.
More and more sought and found answers to their questions in Anabaptist circles
and joined our churches. Astonishing, actually! For especially since the
Peasants' War of 1653, the persecution of our parishioners increased greatly.
Nowhere was safe, anyone and everyone could be affected. This plunged many of
us into hardship and misery. More and more I was consulted for difficult
decisions, more and more despairing people I had to comfort, more and more
sought pastoral counsel and biblical guidance from me. No wonder that the authorities
became aware of me as an Anabaptist teacher.”
In
the summer of 1671, Durss returned to the Emmental to tend his congregation
when he was caught by the authorities.
He escaped forced labor because he was 60 years old and was imprisoned in the Tittlinger Tower in Bern. Facing an indefinite
sentence in the damp, freezing tower, he broke out, resurfacing later as
a co-signer of a letter of thanks and supplication written by Anabaptist
refugees from the Palatinate and Kraichgau to the Dutch Mennonites. In 1679 he and Margret returned illegally to
Switzerland, were captured, scourged,
branded, and imprisoned again. Margret’s statement in the confiscation ledgers
reveals the government’s motives:
“My
husband's first stay in the cold, damp dungeon at Trachselwald Castle lasted
only a few weeks. Then the bailiff had him transferred to Bern, where he was
henceforth locked up in the orphanage.
At the same time, our son Andres was also transported to Bern: In the meantime
it had been discovered that he and his wife were also Anabaptists. And very
quickly, by the way, the authorities had also determined that my husband and I
were by no means poor and that there was "something to get" from us.
Our home on Ober-Kneubühl alone was valued at 3680 pounds and together with our
other property our assets were estimated at 5000 pounds.”
Their
property was worth the modern equivalent of several hundred thousand dollars —
a level of wealth that not only made them prime targets for confiscation, but
also likely spared Durss from the harsher punishments and executions inflicted
on poorer Anabaptists. In 17th‑century Bern, wealthy landowners carried social
influence and were often personally known to local officials, making
authorities far more hesitant to impose the most severe penalties on them.
Escape,
Return, and Relentless Persecution
Between
1670 and 1684, Durss and Margret were held in both the Tittlinger Tower and one
of the many local orphanages in Trachselwald.
They were scourged,
beaten, branded, and fed only bread and water but would not yield to the
Bernese Authorities. They were expelled from Switzerland over and over with the
warning they would be executed if they returned, and yet they always
returned.
The
two were picked up again in Bernbiet, imprisoned in Trachselwald Castle and
probably brought to Bern in the winter of 1678/79. Again, Aebi refused to
renounce his Anabaptist faith. Only because of his old age he was not flogged
but merely expelled from the country with a severe warning.
But in
January 1680 it was brought to the attention of the Provincial Lords of
Burdgorf that the Anabaptist Durss Aebi had again returned to the country
without permission.
“We
have been content to ignore his behavior, and he has been privileged
when we convey our displeasure only by word of mouth. In consideration of his advanced age we know
that he simply does not know the menace he causes by his unauthorized return to
our country. If he is bound to this
course and continues to return he will be beaten with a switch. It is therefore ordered that he again be
banished from the country.”
The
bailiff recorded their statements and asked Bern for instructions on what to do
with the two of them. After a flogging with rods and a small allowance granted
from their own confiscated property, they agreed to leave the country and the
two were deported again. But that was far from the end of the
never-ending story.
Durss
was arrested, punished and banished or escaped multiple times between 1680 and 1684—a
remarkable feat given his age and the brutality of Bernese prisons. As he became more lame and frail, he
continued slipping past guard and reappearing in Sumiswald, “poisoning the
minds of many households,” as the minister complained. At each arrest the
Governor of Trachselwald pleaded with him to stop his foolishness, whereupon he
would be whipped and taken, again, to the border with the warning that another
return would result in another beating. The
patience of the Bernese authorities had been worn thin, yet the conviction of Durss was unrelenting. Records of Margret disappear after she was reported as ill during her
imprisonment in 1681 at the age of 71.
It is presumed that she died shortly thereafter.
The
Final Disappearance
The
last record of Durss appears in May 1684 when he was 74 years old: “The aged
and lame Aebi from Emmental had escaped from the orphanage.”
After
that, history falls silent. No one knows whether he died hidden in the
Emmental, sheltered by his brethren, or perhaps he managed to reach his children in
Germany. He simply vanished—one last act
of defiance from a man who refused to give up his faith or his calling from
God.
What Is an
Anabaptist? And Why Were They Hunted?
If you’ve ever heard of Mennonites or
Amish, then you’ve already brushed up against the world of the Anabaptists.
These groups are part of the same spiritual family tree. But the story begins
long before horse‑drawn buggies or plain clothing. It starts in the 1500s, in
Switzerland and southern Germany, during a time when the government controlled
every part of religious life.
What Anabaptists
Believed
The word Anabaptist means “re‑baptizer.”
They believed:
- Faith
should be a personal choice, not something done to a baby.
- The
church should be separate from the government.
- People
should live peacefully and refuse violence.
- No
one should be forced to follow a religion.
These ideas sound ordinary today. But in
the 1500s and 1600s, they were considered dangerous—almost revolutionary.
Why the
Government Saw Them as a Threat
In Switzerland, the government and the
church were tightly connected. Every birth, marriage, and death was recorded by
the state church. Taxes were tied to church membership. Obedience to the church
meant obedience to the government.
When Anabaptists refused infant
baptism, they weren’t just disagreeing about religion. They were rejecting the
government’s authority over their families
The Anabaptist
Hunt
Because of this, the government created
a special task force called the Anabaptist Commission. Its job was simple: To track down Anabaptists, arrest them, force
them to recant, confiscate their property, and expel them from Switzerland.
This period is often called the
Anabaptist Hunt, and lasted for generations. People were imprisoned, beaten, branded,
starved, whipped, and even sent to row on warships (a punishment that was
essentially a slow death).
Women were sometimes left alone if they
stayed quiet, but once the government realized a family had money or influence,
they were hunted relentlessly.
Where Mennonites
and Amish Fit In
The Anabaptists eventually split into
several groups. Two of the most well‑known today are:
- Mennonites
— named after Menno Simons, a Dutch Anabaptist leader
- Amish
— a group that broke away from the Mennonites in the late 1600s
Both groups share the same roots as
Durss Aebi. They carried forward the beliefs in peace, simplicity, and
voluntary faith.
A Door Opens:
William Penn and America
By the late 1600s, Anabaptists across
Switzerland and Germany were exhausted from generations of persecution. Many
had already fled to the German Palatinate, where life was safer but still
unstable.
Then something remarkable happened.
In 1681, William Penn, an Englishman who
believed strongly in religious freedom, founded the colony of Pennsylvania.
Penn invited persecuted Christians from across Europe to settle
there—especially groups known for peaceful living and hard work.
Mennonites and
other Swiss Brethren saw their chance.
Beginning in the early 1700s, thousands
of Anabaptists left Switzerland and Germany and sailed to America. They settled
in Pennsylvania, where Penn promised freedom of worship, no
forced tithes, no state church, and land they could own outright. For the first time in generations, they could
raise families without fear of arrest. Many of the ancestors in the Aebi/Eby
line eventually followed this path. Their story begins in the Swiss hills,
passes through persecution and exile, and finally finds peace in America.
Why This Matters
for Durss Aebi’s Story
Understanding the Anabaptist Hunt helps
explain why Durss Aebi’s life was so extraordinary. He wasn’t just a man with
unusual beliefs. He was part of a movement the government was determined to
erase. Every time he preached, hosted a meeting, or simply refused to baptize a
baby, he risked imprisonment, torture, or death.
And yet he kept going. And that’s what
makes him one of the most remarkable religious figures in history.
Enduring
Tragedy Together
