John S. Bilby was founder of the Bilby Ranch, which claimed to be the second largest ranch in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Background
Grew up in Drakes town, New Jersey. When he was but eight years old he went to work for his living. Later one year he worked for one hundred and fifteen dollars. He learned a carpenter's skill early and knew hard work. His youth gave him fortitude, self-reliance and the will to persist. He was self educated and a self made man. In the 1850's he became a victim of tuberculosis and believing a change in climate would possibly help his health, came to Canton, Ill. where he worked for a plow manufacturing co. Parlin and Orendoph. With what little money he made there he became involved in building houses and sold them to enable him to by land in Illinois. He found that if he bought a piece of land and then mortgaged it to enable him to buy more. This was the basis he bought the biggest land holdings that he owned later with his sons. He moved to Nodaway county, Missouri with his 1st wife, Margaret Applegate. She died Oct. 2, 1887 and he married his 2nd wife where he built a tile factory. He followed stock raising and farming on a large scale where he built up a community known as Fairview. By 1873 John was buying cattle in Oregon and Washington. He shipped from Wyoming by rail to his headquarters in Missouri, using his sons as cowboys. His next venture was to raise and sell blue grass which was an excellent cattle pasture. By this time he owned twenty-six thousand acres in Missouri. To manage this vast system needed organization and a perfect system, to which John and his sons, Nicholas Vivian, Russell and Edward divided the management. They formed the Quitman Livestock Company and later did the same when in Kent County, Texas. In Missouri they used the brand for the "Ranch 44" on the left side with the Ranch one side and 44 the other. He began a ranch store on the land and all those who worked traded with the Bilby store. (Nicholas had the same set up in Hughes County, Ok.) They became known as the Cattle kings throughout the Middle W. 1880's began buying land in Nebraska where they owned 7 square miles and branched out by buying land in Arkansas and Oklahoma. John's eyes turned toward Kent County, Texas where he encompassed nearly the whole county, over three thousand acres, Texas 4th largest. The land largely was owned by railroad and school land and sold cheap. John's 2nd wife was Eva Smith of Good Hope, Illionois and they were living on his vast land holdings in Wagoner county, Ok. when John was killed in an accident when he stepped down from a cattle car at Catoosa, Ok. and stepped into the path of a Frisco passenger train. His obit headlined with this heading. FROM THE BOTTOM TO A MILLION ACRE FORTUNE. HOLDENVILLE DAILY NEWS, JANUARY 9. 1920. A man who "Pyramided" his land holdings.
Career
The ranch headquartered in Quitman, Missouri, had holdings throughout the United States. Southwest. Bilby settled in Nodaway County, Missouri, in 1868 and began expanding his empire using one property as collateral for the next. Soon it stretched from Missouri to Oklahoma to Texas to New Mexico.
A dispute over the cattle operations was addressed by the United States Supreme Court in 1887 in the case of Teal v.
Bilby. However, since the ranch was totally based on borrowed funds it eventually collapsed, and Bilby was left with the only unmortgaged property—the home in Quitman. He died after being hit by a train shortly after the collapse of the ranch.
Portions of ranch became the O Bar O Ranch in Texas and joined King Ranch, which was the biggest ranch. The State of Missouri acquired 5,030 acres (204 km2) of the land around Quitman in 1989 to form the Bilby Ranch Conservation Area.
Personality
Beginning with 80 acres in Illionois. It isn't much of a trick to buy a million acres of land if you had the money or the backing, but John Bilby started out a comparatively poor man. He was a brick mason by trade, having received his training and education in New Jersey. Contracting Tuberculosis in the early 1850's he moved to Illinois, settling in Canton. In Canton he engaged in business as a building contractor and when he had accumulated several hundreds of dollars, he bought 80 acres of land near town. He was a quiet, mannerly small man, everyone liked. He went to McDounough County, Illinois and soon obtained title to a thousand acres there. It was a master plan to pyramid his money's worth. Soon $10 is worth $20 as in stock exchange. John Bilby applied this principal to buying land. 1865 he only had a few acres where in 1870 he owned several thousands and an increase of a dollar an acre meant just so many thousands of dollars with which to extends his holdings. He always looked beyond the horizon of his land boundry and starting communities where the employees were content to help him build. In three counties of Missouri, he accumulated 26,000 acres. In Eastern Oklahoma land was more affordable at the beginning before statehood as was the vast ranching land in Old Mexico with 400,000 acres there. He operated his operations thru managers and foremen. Cattle and corn were the chief products moving into cotton and oil in later years. The Bilbys, father and sons.... developed an enormous organization for farming and cattle feeding. They established boarding houses, schools, churches, on their ranches; blacksmith and machine shops were built to shoe their horses and repair their farm machinery. Most of the property was transferred to the sons before his death, as he knew he was aging. In 1917 he turned over to John Edward and Nicholas Vivian Bilby his last land holdings.
Physical Characteristics:
Small of frame, quite in personality, his son Nicholas Vivian had a red tinge to his hair, and I suppose that John before greying had similar traits. Nicholas was jovial and liked by many. The four of Nicholas's children were popular and well liked in school and growing up. They entertained a lot to the community youth. Lloyd Noble described the girl Vivian called "Toots" by her beloved father as the woman when he first met at OU University as the one, he was going to marry from that first meeting. They remained devoted to one another until Vivian died young leaving Lloyd with 4 children to raise. They had a strong religious faith and carried it through their married life.
Quotes from others about the person
"Jenks" the foreman and manager for a while in the 0-0 Ranch wrote to Nick Bilby calling him a bow-legged, rich rancher who was privileged to have a father with foresight and wit to build for him and his brother the large family financial status. John Sliger Bilby before turning over his entire land operation to the brothers, John organized a bank of Quitman, Missouri so that he could put his hand on $50,000 to $100,000 at once, which he had not be able to for the entire life he lived on the edge. He would not let money set without putting it to work. For a man so rich in land, John Sliger Bilby held very little cash in his account.