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An Eccentric's Eldred Estate

John Conway - Sullivan County Historian
Posted 6/12/20

Debra Conway—who, incidentally, celebrates a birthday today— is the Executive Director of the non-profit history education group, The Delaware Company, and would ordinarily be hard at work this …

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An Eccentric's Eldred Estate

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Debra Conway—who, incidentally, celebrates a birthday today— is the Executive Director of the non-profit history education group, The Delaware Company, and would ordinarily be hard at work this week finalizing details for the organization's annual Magical History Tour, a narrated bus trip featuring historic landmarks in a different part of Sullivan County each year.

Given the restrictions of the pandemic, however, this year's bus tour has been canceled, and Debra, who also serves as co-historian for the town of Highland, has found other projects to occupy her time, including a major initiative about the D&H Canal she expects to announce shortly. That, however, is a story for another time.

One of the research projects she has undertaken of late involves the eccentric Eldred recluse, Katie Stege, whose death in February of 1936 became a county wide sensation and spawned many tales.

The imposing Mrs. Stege—she supposedly stood six feet tall—was one of two daughters of Brigadier General Thomas Sim (not Sims or Simms, as has often been reported), an Army surgeon during the Civil War best known for amputating the leg of the infamous General Daniel Sickles after he was seriously wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg. Mrs. Stege was married three times, and it was her first marriage, to music publisher Stephen T. Gordon, which provided much of her wealth. At the time of her death she was still the owner of the S. Brainerd Music Publishing Co. of Chicago.

Stephen Gordon died in 1890, and it was around 1896, during her second marriage, to Thomas E. Sidwell, that Mrs. Stege purchased the Albert Abendroth estate in Eldred with the intention of breeding horses. She eventually owned 800 acres, including her pride and joy, the picturesque pond known as Pheasant Hollow Lake. Sidwell died in 1909, leaving her a widow for a second time. Her third marriage was to Edward A. Stege, who lived until 1932.

For at least the final two years of her life, Mrs. Stege rarely left the estate, and was reportedly seen only once in the community during that time, when she went to Eldred to vote in 1934. She employed several men and women on the estate, which she managed with Herbert Gordon, her first husband's grandson, who was not related to her by blood.

Upon her death, neighbors discovered a last will and testament written on the back of an advertisement for the Encyclopedia Britannica, which left a small bequest to her step-grandson and the rest of the estate to the Conservation Society of New York, which was to operate an animal sanctuary on the property.

This provision did not seem so unusual, given that her household at the time included 35 Persian cats, 48 rabbits, 17 ducks, four goats, 22 pigs, 19 sheep, four lambs, 99 chickens, four bulls, five cows and a horse, as well as abundant quantities of wild game and fowl that roamed the property. She had also previously owned several St. Bernard dogs.

The first problem arose when authorities discovered that there was no such entity as the Conservation Society of New York. There were various other problems with the will, and the legal entanglements were not decided for years, at which time the property was split up and sold, and the animals dispersed, which was exactly what Mrs. Stege had tried to guard against.

Shortly after Mrs. Stege's death, a number of public auctions were held to sell off her personal belongings and household furniture. For a year after her death, White Lake businessman William Ramsey leased the property for hunting and fishing. He had operated under a similar arrangement at the former Van Allen estate at Crystal Lake, before the Boy Scouts of America purchased that property.

Katie Stege's story is a fascinating one, and before she's finished her research, Debra Conway expects to find out much more.

John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian. Email him at jconway52@hotmail.com.

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