Hans van Uticken, in the Year 1639

Like a sweeping tempest that strikes everything and carries away whatever is loose, so it also went at this time in the matter of persecution. All who were called Anabaptists were taken along, wherever they could get hold of them. The district of Uticken wage had to suffer much as a result of this. Among those who lived here, they also arrested a pious brother named Hans van Uticken,* surnamed Muller, who in the year 1639 was imprisoned in the convent prison at Zurich. [n1236-1]

There they fed him on water and bread, stripped him in his bonds, and treated him most unmercifully, until, after he had continued in this for two years, he became very sick, and sick as he was, he was helped out of prison by some of his fellow believers, who, it seems, feared his untimely death.

But when he was brought to his wife and children, and had come to rest, he died; yet with a joyful hope and a glad soul, because the course of his pilgrimage (since he had not been weakened in his faith and conscience) was now finished.

Then his wife, because she had given her husband lodging, and the children, because they had shown mercy to their father, had to pay the authorities a fine of forty pounds. Tracts, Jer. Mang., folio 6, A., and M. Meyli, folio 7, B., number 13.

NOTE. In the year 1639 the thief catchers of the city of Zurich, led by one of the ministers of the church there, who went before them with a light (a lantern, torch or candle), like maniacs and madmen forced their way into the house of a pious brother named Rudolf Hagi, whom they at once took prisoner and brought to Othenbach, a damp and unwholesome prison of the city of Zurich.

Here he was stripped in his bonds and kept confined for about eighty-three weeks; during that time he, with others of his fellow believers, was fettered and chained for sixteen weeks.

In the meantime they searched hard for his wife, but at first captured only her oldest child, whom they threatened with iron bonds and handcuffs if the child would not show where its mother was. Afterwards they also found the mother, whom they imprisoned in Othenbach. They, however, when there was no deliverance at hand, later on, by a certain means, made their escape, together with their brothers and sisters who were also imprisoned, without turning away from the faith. Tract Jeremiah Mang., folio 6, A., compared with M. Meyli, on the name Rudolf.