Lyman County, SD News.....Leedom, George Unable to Prove Inheritance 1900
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Debra Crosby http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00010.html#0002467 April 22, 2018, 10:43 pm

The Daily Argus-Leader, Sioux Falls, SD Sat Dec 15, 1900 1900


HEIR CAN NOT GET FORTUNE
A Half Million Is Almost Withing J. F. Leedom's Grasp
    _____________
 IS ONLY ONE OBSTACLE
    _____________
It is That He Must First Name County In Which He Was Born
    _____________
IT IS ABOUT IMPOSSIBLE
    _____________
First Saw Light in a One-Room House Which Stood on the
Junction of Three Counties
    _____________

Oacoma, Dec 15-- (Special to the Argus-Leader)-- A peculiar
legal proposition is just now engaging the attention of the 
bar association of Lyman county. An eccentric old bachelor
named Leedom recently died in Warren county, Pennsylvania,
leaving an estate valued at half a million dollars.
The terms of his will were concise leaving the entire estate
to the surviving heirs of his brother J. F. Leedom, providing
such heir of heirs would prove beyond a reasonable doubt the
day and hour, and the state and county in which the son or
daughter of J. F. Leedom, through whom the inheritance came,
was born. In case such data of birth could not be proven
then such heir should have a nominal sum and the residue
should go to build a town hall in his native town, and then 
trustees of the town were made the executors of the will. The
only surviving heir of J. F. Leedom is G. W. Leedom of 
Iona, S. D.
  The cause of the peculiar conditions of the will and the
obstacles in the way of securing the fortune were related
y Mr. Leedom and are as follows:
  In the early forties the elder Leedom settled in the western
part of Pennsylvania and built a log house for his family.
 A few years later the counties of Mercer, Crawford and Vanango
were formed and the surveyors found the mathematical point
where the latter two cornered upon the former to be nearly in
the center of the Leedom residence. Shortly afterward and
before the monument showing this corner had been placed, G.
W. Leedom was born and a month after the family moved into a
new residence and the old log house was torn down and the
surveyor's monument placed upon it's former site. In his youth
young Wash made his bachelor uncle much trouble by his boyish
pranks and the will is a reminder that the old gentleman never
quite forgave him. As the old log house was small and had but a
single room it appears to be a hopeless  task to attempt to
prove the county in which the heir was born. All the rest of
the data are at hand. The case is watched with interest by the
executors who are themselves parties by residence at least.
      

Additional Comments:
[I am not related, nor researching this line so please do not contact me for 
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