From the Skidmore News, March 16, 1922, page 1:
Bilby Heirs in Big Land Suit.
R. I. Bilby of Quitman and Nicholas V. Bilby of Holdenville, Okla., are defendants in a land suit involving between 15,000 and 20,000 acres of Oklahoma land. The case was scheduled to begin Monday in federal court at Muskogee, Okla.The suit is brought by J. Ed Bilby against his brothers to set aside deeds to this land given by their father, John S. Bilby, in April, 1917. The petition alleges undue influence was used on the father.
J. Ed Bilby has also brought suit in the United States district court at St. Joseph against the same defendants to set aside the deeds to 23,000 acres of Nodaway, Atchison and Holt county land which was conveyed to Russell I. Bilby at the same time as the Oklahoma land. This property is valued at about $3,000,000.John S. Bilby, the father, in 1917, divided up a great deal of his land. To his son, Nicholas Bilby, he gave 125,000 acres of Texas land, estimated to be worth $2,000,000. To his son, Russell I. Bilby, he gave 23,000 acres of land in Nodaway, Atchison and Holt counties. To Nicholas and Russell I. Bilby, jointly, he gave 15,000 to 20,000 acres of Oklahoma land. To J. Ed Bilby, he gave his interest in a ranch in western Kansas.
The elder Mr. Bilby was killed in a railroad accident in November, 1919, at the age of 87 years. At that time he had about 20,000 acres of land in Rogers County, Okla., and other parts of that state as well as in Arkansas and New Jersey. A daughter, Mrs. Frances Ellen Smith, of Seattle, Wash., was given a section of land.
The suit in the district court at St. Joseph will come up for trial in April.