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GREENBURGH PUBLIC LIBRARY
300 TAR'RYTOWS ROAD
ELMSFCRO, N. Y. 10523
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THE LAND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW
OF THIS LETTER- PRESS EDITION
600 COPIES HA VE BEEN PRINTED FOR SALE
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September, i<
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GREENBURGH PUBLIC LIBRARY
300 TARRYTOWN ROAD
ELMSFORD. N. Y. 10523
THE LAND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW
THE HOME OF WASHINGTON IRVING
A SERIES OF PHOTOGRAVURE REPRESENTATIONS,
WITH DESCRIPTIVE LETTER- PRESS
BY J. 1 WILLIAMS
TOGETHER WITH IRVING'S " LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW"
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY F. O. C. DARLEY
AND SELECTIONS FROM
; THE CHRONICLE OF WOLFERT'S ROOST:
LIMITED LETTER- PRESS EDITION
NEW YORK AND LONDON
G. P. P U T N A M ' S SONS
Gbe Ifmlcfterbocfcer © reise
1887
COPYRIGHT BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
- 1887
The Photogravure Illustrations in this volume are
reproduced by the Photogravure Company of New York,
from negatives taken directly from nature by Dr. f. L.
Williams.
CONTENTS.
THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW /
WOLFERT'S ROOST 37
WASHINGTON IRVING, BY J. L. WILLIAMS 55
m
632387
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
!•—" Through solemn woodlands and fresh green
meadows" . . . . . Frontispiece
II.—" A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the
land and to pervade the very atmosphere" . 2
III—" Or peradventure by the appalling sound of the birch,
as he urged some tardy loiterer along the path
of learning" . . . . . . . 5
IV.—" He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of
witchcraft, and of the direful omens and por­tentous
sights and sounds" . . . 8
V.—" In one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in which
the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling" . 10
VI.—" Ichabod would carry o? z his suit with the daughter
by the side of the spring under the great elm " . 15
VII.—" Bearing with honorable faith the bark that trusted
to its waves" . . . . . . . ip
VIII—" The lady of his heart was his partner in the dance,
and smiled graciously in reply to all his amorous
oglings" . . . . . . . . 22
IX.— The Glen at Raven Rock . . . . . 23
X.—" It stood on a green bank shaded by trees " . . 24
XI.—"// was at this identical spot that the unfortunate
Andre was captured" . . . . . 27
vii
VIU List of Illustrations.
XII.—" He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions,
and mounted on a black horse of powerful
frame" . . . . . . . . . jo
XIII.—" ' If I can but reach that bridge] thought Ichabod, ' I
am safe' ' . . . . . . . jf
XIV.—" A little old- fashioned stone mansion, all made up of
gable ends, and as full of angles and corners as
an old cocked hat" . . . . . . jj
XV.—" A lonely, rambling, down- hill lane overhung with
t r e e s " . . . . . . . . 48
XVI.—" A wild brook came babbling down a neighboring
ravine " . . . . . . . . 50
XVII.—" It is a venerable edifice, partly of stone and partly
of brick, the latter having been brought from
Holland in the early days of the province " . 5/
XVIII.—" Where the Pocantico winds its wizard stream" . $ j
XIX.—" A thousand crystal springs sent down from the
hill- sides their whimpering rills" . . - 53
XX.— Tarry town from the heights . . . . . 55
XXI.—" Grand old elms hang over moss- covered walls " . 55
XXII.— Glimpse of Sunny side and the brook from the rail­road
. . . . . . . . . ^ 6
XXIII.— The old Paulding mansion . . . . . 5^
XXIV.—" Sometimes sparkling between grassy borders" . 57
XXV.—" The bridge famous in goblin story " . . . 58
XXVI.—" Here then have I set up my rest, with that glorious
river before me " . . . . . . 59
XXVII— Old mill of Frederick Filipsen. " A mighty patron
of the olden time who reigned over a wide extent
of this neighborhood and held his seat of power
at Yonkers " . . . . . . . 6r
List of Illustrations. ix
XXVIII.— Gateway and mansion- house of Frederick Filipsen . 61
XXIX.—" Under the balancing sprays of beech and chestnut
trees . . . . . . . . 62
XXX.—" An old goblin- looking mill, situated among rocks and
• w a t e r f a l l s " . . . . . . . 64
XXXI.— Old willows near Sunny side . . . . . 6j
XXXII—" The quiet, sechided, poetic haunt in which a great
author wrote his p- reatest works" . . 66
XXXIII— Sunset on the Hudson . . . . . . 68
XXXIV.— Christ Church at Tarrytown, containing a mural
tablet erected in memory of Washington Irving, 6p
XXXV—" Across its daisy- covered fields" . . . . 75
I THE
LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW.
FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER.
A pleasing land of drowsy head it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half- shut eye,
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
For ever flushing round a summer sky.
CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.
N the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the
eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of
the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the
Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail, and
implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies
a small market- town or rural port, which by some is called Greens-burgh,
but which is more generally and properly known by the name
of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days,
by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate
propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on
market- days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but
merely advert to it for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not
far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley,
or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the quietest
places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with
2 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
just murmur enough to lull one to repose ; and the occasional whistle
of a quail, or tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that
ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.
I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-shootingf
was in a grove of tall walnut- trees that shades one side of
the valley. I had wandered into it at noon- time, when all nature is
peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it
broke the Sabbath stillness around, and was prolonged and reverber­ated
by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither
I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly
away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising
than this little valley.
From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of
its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers,
this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY
HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys
throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influ­ence
seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmos­phere.
Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German
doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old
Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his pow- wows
there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson.
Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witch­ing
power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people,
causing them to walk in a continual revery. They are given to all
kinds of marvellous beliefs ; are subject to trances and visions ; and
frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air.
The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and
twilight superstitions; stars shoot, and meteors glare oftener across
the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare,
with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her
gambols.
The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region,
A d r o w j y , < Jr^/*\ y ioflv<? r? c^ 5^?^ 5 tc
v^ ry * t^° VF > b? r^ * i
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 3
and seems to be commander- in- chief of all the powers of the air, is the
apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by
some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been car­ried
away by a cannon- ball, in some nameless battle during the
revolutionary war, and who is ever and anon seen by the country
folk, hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the
wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times
to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no
great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of
those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the
floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body of the
trooper, having been buried in the churchyard,. the ghost rides forth
to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head; and that the rush­ing
speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a
midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get
back to the churchyard before daybreak.
Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which
has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shad­ows
; and the spectre is known, at all the country firesides, by the
name of The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.
It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned
is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is uncon­sciously
imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. How­ever
wide- awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy
region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence
of the air, and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams, and see
apparitions.
I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud ; for it is in
such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in
the great State of New York, that population, manners, and customs
remain fixed; while the great torrent of migration and improve­ment,
which is making such incessant changes in other parts of this
restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those
4 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
little nooks of still water which border a rapid stream ; where we may
see the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly rovolving
in their mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current.
Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of
Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find the same
trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.
In this by- place of nature, there abode, in a remote period of
American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy
wight of the name of Ichabod Crane ; who sojourned, or, as he ex­pressed
it, " tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing
the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut, a State
which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for
the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen
and country schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not inap­plicable
to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow
shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his
sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame
most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top,
with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that
it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck, to tell
which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of
a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about
him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descend­ing
upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.
His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely
constructed of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched
with leaves of old copy- books. It was most ingeniously secured at
vacant hours by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes
set against the window- shutters ; so that, though a thief might get in
with perfect ease, he would find some embarrassment in getting out;
an idea most probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten,
from the mystery of an eel- pot. The school- house stood in a rather
lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a
" Or peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy loiterer along the path of learning."
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 5
brook running close by, and a formidable birch- tree growing at one
end of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, conning
over their lessons, might be heard in a drowsy summer's day, like the
hum of a beehive ; interrupted now and then by the authoritative
voice of the master, in the tone of menace or command ; or, perad-venture,
by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy
loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a
conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, " Spare
the rod and spoil the child."— Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were
not spoiled.
I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those
cruel potentates of the school, who joy in the smart of their subjects ;
on the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than
severity, taking the burden off the backs of the weak, and laying it on
those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the
least flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the
claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some
little, tough, wrong- headed, broad- skirted, Dutch urchin, who sulked
and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this
he called " doing his duty " by their parents ; and he never inflicted
a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consolatory
to the smarting urchin, that " he would remember it and thank him
for it the longest day he had to live."
When school hours were over, he was even the companion and
playmate of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would con­voy
some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty
sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of
the cupboard. Indeed it behooved him to keep on good terms with
his pupils. The revenue arising from his school was small, and
would have been scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily bread,
for he was a huge feeder, and, though lank, had the dilating powers
of an anaconda; but to help out his maintenance, he was, according
to country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses
6 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
of the farmers whose children he instructed. With these he lived
successively a week at a time ; thus going the rounds of the neighbor­hood,
with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief.
That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic
patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous
burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of
rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers
occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms : helped to make hay ;
mended the fences; took the horses to water; drove the cows from
pasture ; and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the
dominant dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his
little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingrati­ating.
He found favor in the eyes of the mothers, by petting the
children, particularly the youngest; and, like the lion bold, which
whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a
child on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours
together.
In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing- master of
the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing
the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to
him, on Sundays, to take his station in front of the church gallery,
with a band of chosen singers ; where, in his own mind, he completely
carried away the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice re­sounded
far above all the rest of the congregation; and there are
peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and which may even
be heard half a mile off, quite to the opposite side of the mill- pond,
on a still Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately de­scended
from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers little
makeshifts in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated
" by hook and by crook," the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably
enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor
of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it.
The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 7
female circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a kind of
idle, gentleman- like personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplish­ments
to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning
only to the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion
some little stir at the tea- table of a farm- house, and the addition of a
supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the
parade of a silver tea- pot. Our man of letters, therefore, was pecul­iarly
happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he would
figure among them in the churchyard, between services on Sundays!
gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that overrun the sur­rounding
trees; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the
tombstones; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the
banks of the adjacent mill- pond; while the more bashful country
bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and
address.
From his half- itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travelling
gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to
house ; so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction.
He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudi­tion,
for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect
master of Cotton Mather's " History of New England Witchcraft,"
in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed.
He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple
credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his powers of digest­ing
it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by
his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or
monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after
his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the
rich bed of clover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his
schoolhouse, and there con over old Mather's direful tales, until the
gathering dusk of the evening made the printed page a mere mist
before his eyes. Then, as he wended his way, by swamp and stream
and awful woodland, to the farm- house where he happened to be
8 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his
excited imagination : the moan of the whippoorwill * from the hill­side
; the boding cry of the tree- toad, that harbinger of storm ; the
dreary hooting of the screech- owl, or the sudden rustling in the
thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fire- flies, too, which
sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled
him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path ;
and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his
blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up
the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token. His
only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive
away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes; and the good people of
Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often
filled with awe, at hearing his nasal melody, " in linked sweetness
long drawn out," floating from the distant hill or along the dusky
road.
Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long winter
evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire,
with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and
listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted
fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses,
and particularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of
the Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them
equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and
portentous sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier
times of Connecticut; and would frighten them wofully with specu­lations
upon comets and shooting stars, and with the alarming fact
that the world did absolutely turn round, and that they were half the
time topsy- turvy!
But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in
the chimney- corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from
* The whippoorwill is a bird which is only heard at night. It receives its name from its note, which
is thought to resemble those words.
I He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous
sights and sounds."
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 9
the crackling wood- fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to
show his face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent
walk homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path
amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night!— With what
wistful look did he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across
the waste fields from some distant window !— How often was he ap­palled
by some shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted
spectre, beset his very path !— How often did he shrink with curdling
awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his
feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some
uncouth being tramping close behind him !— and how often was he
thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among
the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his
nightly scourings!
All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of
the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many
spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in
divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end
to all these evils ; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in
despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed
by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts,
goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was—
a woman.
Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each
week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van
Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer.
She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge ;
ripe and melting and rosy- cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and
universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast expecta­tions.
She was withal a little of a coquette, as might be perceived
even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern
fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the orna­ments
of pure yellow gold, which her great- great- grandmother had
io The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
brought over from Saardam; the tempting stomacher of the olden
time; and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the pretti­est
foot and ankle in the country round.
Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex ; and
it is not to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon found
favor in his eyes; more especially after he had .. visited her in her
paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a
thriving, contented, liberal- hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true,
sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own
farm ; but within those every thing was snug, happy, and well- condi­tioned.
He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; and
piqued himself upon the hearty abundance rather than the style in
which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks of the
Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in which the
Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm- tree spread its
broad branches over it; at the foot of which bubbled up a stream of
the softest and sweetest water, in a little well, formed of a barrel;
and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring
brook, that bubbled along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard
by the farm- house was a vast barn, that might have served for a
church; every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth
with the treasures of the farm ; the flail was busily resounding within
it from morning till night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering
about the eaves ; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up(
as if watching the weather, some with their heads under their wings,
or buried in their bosoms, and others swelling, and cooing, and bow­ing
about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof.
Sleek unwieldly porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance
of their pens ; whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking
pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were
riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks ; regi­ments
of turkeys were gobbling through the farm- yard, and guinea-fowls
fretting about it, like ill- tempered housewives, with their peev-
ii7 whirl? ${ D^ b f a r ^ r j aj^ } o jopd of W$$ f|
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. \ \
ish, discontented cry. Before the barn- door strutted the gallant cock,
that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping
his burnished wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness of his
heart— sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then gener­ously
calling his ever- hungry family of wives and children to enjoy
the rich morsel which he had discovered.
The pedagogue's mouth watered, as he looked upon this sumptu­ous
promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind's eye
he pictured to himself every roasting pig running about with a pud­ding
in his belly, and an apple in his mouth ; the pigeons were snugly
put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of
crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks
pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent
competency of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the
future sleek side of bacon, and juicy, relishing ham ; not a turkey but
he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and,
peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages ; and even bright chanti­cleer
himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side- dish, with uplifted
claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained
to ask while living.
As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his
great green eyes over the fat meadow- lands, the rich fields of wheat,
of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchard burdened with
ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his
heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and
his imagination expanded with the idea how they might be readily
turned into cash, and the money invested in the immense tracts of wild
land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy
already realized his hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina,
with a whole family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded
with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath ; and
he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels,
setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord knows where.
12 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was com­plete.
It was one of those spacious farm- houses, with high- ridged,
but lowly sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first
Dutch settlers; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the
front, capable of being closed in bad weather. Under this were hung
flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in
the neighboring river. Benches were built along the sides for summer
use ; and a great spinning- wheel at one end, and a churn at the other,
showed the various uses to which this important porch might be de­voted.
From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the hall,
which formed the centre of the mansion and the place of usual resi­dence.
Here, rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser,
dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool ready to
be spun ; in another a quantity of linsey- woolsey just from the loom ;
ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in
gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers ;
and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the
claw- footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors ; and
the irons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from
their covert asparagus tops ; mock- oranges and conch- shells decorated
the mantel- piece ; strings of various colored birds' eggs were suspended
above i t ; a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre of the room,
and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treas­ures
of old silver and well- mended china.
From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of
delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was
how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel.
In this enterprise, however, he had more real difficulties than generally
fell to the lot of a knight- errant of yore, who seldom had any thing
but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like easily conquered
adversaries, to contend with; and had to make his way merely through
gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant, to the castle keep, where
the lady of his heart was confined ; all which he achieved as easily as
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 13
a man would carve his way to the centre of a Christmas pie ; and then
the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on the con­trary,
had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette, beset
with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting
new difficulties and impediments; and he had to encounter a host of
fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic ad­mirers,
who beset every portal to her heart; keeping a watchful and
angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause
against any new competitor.
Among these the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roistering
blade, of the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch abbrevia­tion,
Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang
with his feats of strength and hardihood. He was broad- shouldered,
and double- jointed, with short curly black hair, and a bluff but not
unpleasant countenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance.
From his herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received
the nickname of BROM BONES, by which he was universally known.
He was famed for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being
as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races
and cock- fights ; and, with the ascendancy which bodily strength
acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat
on one side, and giving his decisions with an air and tone admitting
of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a fight or
a frolic ; but had more mischief than ill- will in his composition ; and,
with all his overbearing roughness, there was a strong dash of wag­gish
good- humor at bottom. He had three or four boon companions,
who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom he
scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for
miles round. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, sur­mounted
with a flaunting fox's tail ; and when the folks at a country
gathering descried this well- known crest at a distance, whisking about
among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall.
Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the farm-
i4 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
houses at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cos­sacks
; and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for
a moment till the hurry- scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim :
" Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang !" The neighbors looked
upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good- will ; and
when any madcap prank, or rustic brawl, occurred in the vicinity,
always shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was at the bot­tom
of it.
This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming
Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries ; and though his
amorous toyings were something like the gentle caresses and endear­ments
of a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not altogether dis­courage
his hopes. Certain it is, his advances were signals for rival
candidates to retire, who felt no inclination to cross a lion in his
amours ; insomuch that, when his horse was seen tied to Van Tas­sel's
paling on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his master was court­ing,
or, as it is termed, " sparking," within, all other suitors passed
by in despair, and carried the war into other quarters.
Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to
contend, and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would
have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would have de­spaired.
He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perse­verance
in his nature ; he was in form and spirit like a supplejack—
yielding, but tough ; though he bent, he never broke ; and though
he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away
— jerk ! he was as erect, and carried his head as high, as ever.
To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been
madness, for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any
more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his
advances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. Under cover of
his character of singing- master, he had made frequent visits at
the farm- house ; not that he had any thing to apprehend from the
meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a stumbling-
" Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm."
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 15
block in the paths of lovers. Bait Van Tassel was an easy, indulgent
soul ; he loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and, like a
reasonable man and an excellent father, let her have her way in every
thing. His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to attend to her
housekeeping and manage her poultry ; for, as she sagely observed,
ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls
can take care of themselves. Thus while the busy dame bustled
about the house, or plied her spinning- wheel at one end of the piazza,
honest Bait would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching
the achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a
sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pin­nacle
of the barn. In the meantime Ichabod would carry on his suit
with the daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm, or
sauntering along' in the twilight— that hour so favorable to the lover's
eloquence.
I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To
me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some
seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access, while others
have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand differ­ent
ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still
greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for
the man must battle for his fortress at every door and window. He
who wins a thousand common hearts is therefore entitled to some
renown, but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a co­quette
is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this was not the case with the
redoubtable Brom Bones ; and from the moment Ichabod Crane
made his advances, the interests of the former declined ; his horse
was no longer seen tied at the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly
feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy
Hollow.
Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would
fain have carried matters to open warfare, and have settled their pre­tensions
to the lady according to the mode of those most concise and
16 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
simple reasoners, the knights- errant of yore— by single combat; but
Ichabod was too conscious of the superior might of his adversary to
enter the lists against him : he had overheard a boast of Bones, that
he would " double the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his
own school- house " ; and he was too wary to give him an opportunity.
There was something extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific
system; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of
rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical
jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of whimsical perse­cution
to Bones and his gang of rough riders. They harried his
hitherto peaceful domains ; smoked out his singing- school by stopping
up the chimney ; broke into the school- house at night, in spite of its
formidable fastenings of withe and window- stakes, and turned every
thing topsy- turvy, so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all
the witches in the country held their meetings there. But what was
still more annoying, Brom took opportunities of turning him into
ridicule in presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog whom
he taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and introduced as
a rival of Ichabod's to instruct her in psalmody.
In this way matters went on for some time, without producing
any material effect on the relative situation of the contending powers.
On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat en­throned
on the lofty stool whence he usually watched all the concerns
of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that
sceptre of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails,
behind the throne, a constant terror to evil- doers ; while on the desk
before him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited
weapons, detected upon the persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched
apples, popguns, whirligigs, fly- cages, and whole legions of
rampant little paper game- cocks. Apparently there had been some
appalling act of justice recently inflicted, for his scholars were all
busily intent upon their books, or slyly whispering behind them with
one eye kept upon the master ; and a kind of buzzing stillness
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 17
reigned throughout the school- room. It was suddenly interrupted
by the appearance of a negro, in tow- cloth jacket and trousers, a
round- crowned fragment of a hat, like the cap of Mercury, and
mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half- broken colt, which he
managed with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering up to the
school door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry- making
or I quilting frolic," to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's ;
and having delivered his message with that air of importance, and
effort at fine language, which a negro is apt to display on petty
embassies of the kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen
scampering away up the Hollow, full of the importance and hurry of
his mission.
All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school- room. The
scholars were hurried through their lessons, without stopping at
trifles ; those who were nimble skipped over half with impunity, and
those who were tardy had a smart application now and then in the
rear, to quicken their speed, or help them over a tall word. Books
were flung aside without being put away on the shelves, inkstands
were overturned, benches thrown down, and the whole school was
turned loose an hour before the usual time, bursting forth like a legion
of young imps, yelping and racketing about the green, in joy at their
early emancipation.
The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his
toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best and indeed his only suit of
rusty black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken looking- glass,
that hung up in the school- house. That he might make his appear­ance
before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a
horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old
Dutchman, of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly
mounted, issued forth, like a knight- errant in quest of adventures. But
it is meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some ac­count
of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The
animal he bestrode was a broken- down plough- horse, that had outlived
18 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
almost every thing but his viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged,
with a ewe neck and a head like a hammer ; his rusty mane and tail
were tangled and knotted with burrs ; one eye had lost its pupil, and
was glaring and spectral; but the other had the gleam of a genuine
devil in it. Still he must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we
may judge from the name he bore of Gunpowder. He had, in fact,
been a favorite steed of his master's, the choleric Van Ripper, who was
a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of his own spirit
into the animal; for, old and broken- down as he looked, there was
more of the lurking devil in him than in any young filly in the country.
Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short
stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of his sad­dle
; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers'; he carried his whip
perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and, as his horse jogged
on, the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of
wings. A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty
strip of forehead might be called ; and the skirts of his black coat
fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. Such was the appearance of
Ichabod and his steed, as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van
Ripper, and it was altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be
met with in broad daylight.
It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day, the sky was clear and
serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always
associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their
sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had
been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and
scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks began to make their appear­ance
high in the air ; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the
groves of beech and hickory nuts, and the pensive whistle of the
quail at intervals from the neighboring stubble- field.
The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the ful­ness
of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicking, from bush
to bush, and tree to tree, capricious from the very profusion and
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 19
variety around them. There was the honest cock- robin, the favorite
game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud, querulous note ; and the
twittering blackbirds flying in sable clouds; and the golden- winged
woodpecker, with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splen­did
plumage ; and the cedar- bird, with its red- tipt wings and yellow-tipt
tail, and its little montero cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that
noisy coxcomb, in his gay light- blue coat and white under- clothes,
screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pre­tending
to be on good terms with every songster of the grove.
As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every
symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treas­ures
of jolly autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples;
some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered
into baskets and barrels for the market; others heaped up in rich piles
for the cider- press. Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn,
with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out
the promise of cakes and hasty- pudding; and the yellow pumpkins
lying beneath them, turning up their fair round bellies to the sun, and
giving ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies ; and anon he
passed the fragrant buckwheat fields, breathing the odor of the bee­hive,
and as he beheld them, soft anticipations stole over his mind of
dainty slapjacks, well buttered, and garnished with honey or treacle,
by the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel.
Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and " sugared
suppositions," he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills which
look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson.
The sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down into the west. The
wide bosom of the Tappan Zee lay motionless and glossy, excepting
that here and there a gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue
shadow of the distant mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the
sky, without a breath of air to move them. The horizon was of a fine
golden tint, changing gradually into a pure apple- green, and from
that into the deep blue of the mid- heaven. A slanting ray lingered
20 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
on the woody crests of the precipices that overhung some parts of the
river, giving greater depth to the dark- gray and purple of their rocky
sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down
with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast; and as the
reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the
vessel was suspended in the air.
It was toward evening- that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the
Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower
of the adjacent country: old farmers, a spare leathern- faced race,
in homespun coats and breaches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and
magnificent pewter buckles ; their brisk withered little dames, in close-crimped
caps, long- waisted shortgowns, homespun petticoats, with
scissors and pin- cushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the out­side
; buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, excepting
where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock, gave
symptoms of city innovation ; the sons, in short square- skirted coats,
with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued
in the fashion of the times, especially if they could procur ean eel- skin
for the purpose, it being esteemed, throughout the country, as a potent
nourisher and strengthener of the hair.
Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come to
the gathering on his famous steed, Daredevil, a creature, like himself,
full of mettle and mischief, and. which no one but himself could man­age.
He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, given to
all kinds of tricks, which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck,
for he held a tractable well- broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit.
Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst
upon the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlor
of Van Tassel's mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses,
with their luxurious display of red and white; but the ample charms
of a genuine Dutch country tea- table, in the sumptuous time of au­tumn.
Such heaped- up platters of cakes of various and indescribable
kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 21
doughty dough- nut, the tenderer oly koek, and the crisp and crumbling
kruller; sweet- cakes and short- cakes, ginger- cakes and honey- cakes,
and the whole family of cakes. And then there were apple- pies and
peach- pies and pumpkin- pies ; besides slices of ham and smoked beef;
and moreover delectable dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and
pears, and quinces ; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens ;
together with bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy- piggledy,
pretty much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly teapot
sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst— Heaven bless the
mark ! I want breath and time to discuss this banquet as it deserves,
and am too eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane
was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to
every dainty.
He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in pro­portion
as his skin was filled with good cheer ; and whose spirits rose
with eating as some men's do with drink. He could not help, too,
rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the
possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost
unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd
turn his back upon the old school- house; snap his fingers in the face
of Hans Van Ripper, and every other niggardly patron, and kick any
itinerant pedagogue out- of- doors that should dare to call him comrade !
Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face
dilated with content and good- humor, round and jolly as the harvest-moon.
His hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being
confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh,
and a pressing invitation to " fall to, and help themselves."
And now the sound of the music from the common room, or hall,
summoned to the dance. The musician was an old gray- headed
negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for
more than half a century. His instrument was as old and battered as
himself. The greater part of the time he scraped on two or three
strings, accompanying every movement of the bow with a motion of
22 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
the head ; bowing almost to the ground, and stamping with his foot
whenever a fresh couple were to start.
Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his
vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about him was idle ; and to
have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion, and clattering about
the room, you would have thought Saint Vitus himself, that blessed
patron of the dance, was figuring before you in person. He was the
admiration of all the negroes; who, having gathered, of all ages and
sizes, from the farm and the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid
of shining black faces at every door and window, gazing with delight
at the scene, rolling their white eyeballs, and showing grinning rows
of ivory from ear to ear. How could the flogger of urchins be other­wise
than animated and joyous ? the lady of his heart was his partner
in the dance, and smiling graciously in reply to all his amorous
oglings ; while Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy, sat
brooding by himself in one corner.
When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a knot
of the sager folks, who, with old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end
of the piazza, gossiping over former times, and drawing out long
stories about the war.
This neigborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one of
those highly favored places which abound with chronicle and great
men. The British and American line had run near it during the war;
it had, therefore, been the scene of marauding, and infested with ref­ugees,
cow- boys, and all kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient
time had elapsed to enable each story- teller to dress up his tale with
a little becoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his recollection,
to make himself the hero of every exploit.
There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue- bearded
Dutchman, who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old nine-pounder
from a mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth
discharge. And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless,
being too rich a mynheer to be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle
wm
The lady of his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiled graciously in reply to all his amorous oglings."
H ^ v? 9 ^° Q. V
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 23
of Whiteplains, being an excellent master of defence, parried a musket-ball
with a small sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz round
the blade, and glance off at the hilt; in proof of which he was ready
at any time to show the sword, with the hilt a little bent. There
were several more that had been equally great in the field, not one of
whom but was persuaded that he had a considerable hand in bringing
the war to a happy termination.
But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions that
succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures of the
kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered long,
settled retreats; but are trampled underfoot by the shifting throng that
forms the population of most of our country places. Besides, there
is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have
scarcely had time to finish their first nap, and turn themselves in their
. graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from the
neighborhood; so that when they turn out at night to walk their
rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps
the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts, except in our long- estab­lished
Dutch communities.
The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of supernatural
stories in these parts was doubtless owing to the vicinity of Sleepy
Hollow. There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that
haunted region ; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fan­cies
infecting all the land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were
present at Van Tassel's, and, as usual, were doling out their wild and
wonderful legends. Many dismal tales were told about funeral trains,
and mourning cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree
where the unfortunate Major Andre was taken, and which stood in the
neighborhood. Some mention was made also of the woman in white,
that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to
shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the
snow. The chief part of these stories, however, turned upon the fav­orite
spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been
24 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
heard several times of late, patrolling the country; and, it was said,
tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard.
The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have
made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll,
surrounded by locust- trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent
whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming
through the shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it
to a silver sheet of water, bordered by high trees, between which,
peeps may be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon
its grass- grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly,
one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace. On
one side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along which raves
a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen trees. Over
a deep black part of the stream, not far from the church, was formerly
thrown a wooden bridge ; the road that led to it, and the bridge
itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom
about it, even in the daytime, but occasioned a fearful darkness at
night. This was one of the favorite haunts of the headless horseman ;
and the place where he was most frequently encountered. The tale
was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how
he met the horseman returning from his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and
was obliged to get up behind him; how they galloped over brush and
brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge; when the
horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into
the brook, and sprang away over the tree- tops with a clap of thunder.
This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvellous adven­ture
of Brom Bones, who made light of the galloping Hessian as an
arrant jockey. He affirmed that, on returning one night from the
neighboring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this mid­night
trooper; that he had offered to race with him for a bowl of
punch, and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin
horse all hollow, but, just as they - came to the church- bridge, the
Hessian bolted, and vanished in a flash of fire.
It \ 5too< i ° y ^ Y* W ^ ^ 5(?^ td ty f r n*
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 25
All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk
in the dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and then re­ceiving
a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind
of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts from his in­valuable
author, Cotton Mather, and added many marvellous events
that had taken place in his native State of Connecticut, and fearful
sights which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow.
The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered
together' their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time
rattling along the hollow roads and over the distant hills. Some of
the damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and
their light- hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed
along the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter until they
gradually died away— and the late scene of noise and frolic was all
silent and deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the
custom of country lovers, to have a tHe-' h- tete with the heiress, fully
convinced that he was now on the high road to success. What passed
at this interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not know.
Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he cer­tainly
sallied forth, after no very great' interval, with an air quite
desolate and chopfallen. Oh, these women ! these women ! Could
that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks ? Was
her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure
her conquest of his rival ? Heaven only knows, not I ! Let it suffice
to say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking
a hen- roost, rather than a fair lady's heart. Without looking to the
right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth on which he had so
often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty
cuffs and kicks, roused his steed most uncourteously from the
comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of
mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy and clover.
It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy- hearted
and crestfallen, pursued his travel homeward, along the sides of the
26 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed
so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far
below him, the Tappan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of
waters, with here and there the tall mast of a sloop riding quietly at
anchor under the land. In the dead hush of midnight he could even
hear the barking of the watch- dog from the opposite shore of the
Hudson; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his
distance from this faithful companion of man. Now and then, too,
the long- drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound
far, far off, from some farm- house away among the hills— but it was
like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him
but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the
guttural twang of a bull- frog, from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping
uncomfortably, and turning suddenly in his bed.
All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the
afternoon now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew
darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and
driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt
so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place
where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the
centre of the road stood an enormous tulip- tree, which towered like
a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a
kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough
to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth,
and rising again into the air. It was connected with the tragical story
of the unfortunate Andr£, who had been taken prisoner hard by ; and
was universally known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The
common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition,
partly out of sympathy for the fate of its ill- starred namesake, and
partly from the tales of strange sights and doleful lamentations told
concerning it.
As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle : he
thought his whistle was answered,— it was but a blast sweeping
" Itweyj M fyiy id^ pti^ l j^° t tb* t H
sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer,
he thought he saw something white hanging in the midst of the tree,
— he paused and ceased whistling ; but on looking more narrowly,
perceived that it was a place where the tree had been scathed by light­ning,
and the white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan,—
his teeth chattered and his knees smote against the saddle : it was but
the rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as they were swayed
about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety; but new perils lay
before him.
About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook crossed the
road, and ran into a marshy and thickly wooded glen, known by the
27
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 29
name of Wiley's swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served
for a bridge over this stream. On that side of the road where the
brook entered the wood, a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick
with wild grape- vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass
this bridge was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that
the unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the covert of those
chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised
him. This has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and
fearful are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to pass it alone
after dark.
As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump ; he sum­moned
up, however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of
kicks in the ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge;
but instead of starting forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral
movement, and ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose
fears increased with the delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and
kicked lustily with the contrary foot: it was all in vain ; his steed
started, it is true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the
road into a thicket of brambles and alder bushes. The schoolmaster
now bestowed both whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of old
Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuffling and snorting, but came to
a stand just by the bridge, with a suddenness that had nearly sent his
rider sprawling over his head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp
by the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the
dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld
something huge, misshapen, black, and towering. It stirred not, but
seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready
to spring upon the traveller.
The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with
terror. What was to be done ? To turn and fly was now too late ;
and besides, what chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if
such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind? Sum­moning
up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded in stammering
30 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
accents—" Who are you ?" He received no reply. He repeated
his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still there was no answer.
Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and,
shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm-tune.
Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion,
and, with a scramble and a bound, stood at once in the middle of the
road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of the
unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He appeared
to be a horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a black horse
of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability,
but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind
side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and way­wardness.
Ichabod, who had no relish for his strange midnight companion,
and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Gal­loping
Hessian, now quickened his steed, in hopes of leaving him
behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace.
Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind,— the
other did the same. His heart began to sink within him ; he endeav­ored
to resume his psalm- tune, but his parched tongue clove to the
roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a stave. There was some­thing
in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion
that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted
for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his
fellow- traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muf­fled
in a cloak, Ichabod was horror- struck, on perceiving that he was
headless !— but his horror was still more increased, on observiner that
the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried
before him on the pommel of the saddle : his terror rose to despera­tion
; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping,
by a sudden movement, to give his companion the slip,— but the
spectre started full jump with him. Away then they dashed, through
thick and thin ; stones flying, and sparks flashing at every bound.
" He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a black horse of powerful frame."
v- sassa/
" EaciiU-
" ' If I can but reach that bridge,' thought Ichabod, ' I am safe.'"
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 31
Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as he stretched his
long lank body away over his horse's head, in the eagerness of
his flight.
They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow ;
but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of
keeping up it, made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong downhill
to the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow, shaded by trees
for about a quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in
goblin story, and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands
the whitewashed church.
As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful rider an ap­parent
advantage in the chase ; but just as he had got half- way through
the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping
from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to.
hold it firm, but in vain ; and had just time to save himself by clasp­ing
old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth,
and he heard it trampled underfoot by his pursuer. For a moment
the. terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath passed across his mind— for it
was his Sunday saddle ; but this was no time for petty fears ; the goblin
was hard on his haunches; and ( unskilful rider that he was!) he had
much ado to maintain his seat; sometimes slipping on one side, and
sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his
horse's backbone with a violence that he verily feared would cleave
him asunder.
An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the
church- bridgfe was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star
in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw
the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He
recollected the place where Brom Bones' ghostly competitor had
disappeared. " If I can but reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, " I
am safe," Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing
close behind him ; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath.
Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon
32 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
the bridge ; he thundered over the resounding planks ; he gained the
opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pur­suer
should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone.
Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of
hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible
missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous
crash,— he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the
black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a whirlwind.
The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle, and
with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his
master's gate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast;—
dinner- hour came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the
school- house, and strolled idly about the banks of the brook ; but no
schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness
about the fate of poor Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set
on foot, and after diligent investigation they came upon his traces.
In one part of the road leading to the church was found the saddle
trampled in the dirt; the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply indented in
the road, and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge,
beyond which, on a bank of the broad part of the brook, where the
water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate
Ichabod, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin.
The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster
was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of his
estate, examined the bundle which contained all his worldly effects.
They consisted of two shirts and a half ; two stocks for the neck ; a
pair or two of worsted stockings; an old pair of corduroy small­clothes
; a rusty razor ; a book of psalm- tunes, full of dogs' ears ; and
a broken pitchpipe. As to the books and furniture of the school-house,
they belonged to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's
" History of Witchcraft," a " New England Almanac," and a book of
dreams and fortune- telling; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much
scribbled and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make a copy of
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 33
verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassell. These magic books
and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans
Van Ripper; who from that time forward determined to send his
children no more to school ; observing, that he never knew any good
come from this same reading and writing. Whatever money the
schoolmaster possessed, and he had received his quarter's pay but a
day or two before, he must have had about his person at the time of
his disappearance.
The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on
the following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected
in the churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and
pumpkin had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a
whole budget of others, were called to mind ; and when they had
diligently considered them all, and compared them with the symp­toms
of the present case, they shook their heads, and came to the
conclusion that Ichabod had been carried off by the Galloping Hes­sian.
As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled
his head any more about him. The school was removed to a different
quarter of the Hollow, and another pedagogue reigned in his stead.
It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a
visit several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly
adventure was received, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod
Crane was still alive ; that he had left the neighborhood, partly
through fear of the goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in
mortification at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress ;
that he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country;
had kept school and studied law at the same time, had been ad­mitted
to the bar, turned politician, electioneered, written for the
newspapers, and finally had been made a justice of the Ten Pound
Court. Brom Bones too, who shortly after his rival's disappear­ance
conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar; was
observed to look exceeding knowing whenever the story of Icha­bod
was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the
34 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
mention of the pumpkin ; which led some to suspect that he knew
more about the matter than he chose to tell.
The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these
matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by
supernatural means; and it is a favorite story often told about the
neighborhood round the winter- evening fire. The bridge became
more than, ever an object of superstitious awe, and that may be the
reason why the road has been altered of late years, so as to approach
the church by the border of the mill- pond. The school- house, being
• deserted, soon fell to decay, and was reported to be haunted by the
ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue ; and the ploughboy, loitering
homeward of a still summer evening, has often fancied his voice
at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm- tune among the tranquil
solitudes of Sleepy Hollow.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 35
POSTSCRIPT,
FOUND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKER.
THE preceding tale is given, almost in
the precise words in which I heard it re­lated
at a Corporation meeting of the
ancient city of Manhattoes, at which
were present many of its sagest and most
illustrious burghers. The narrator was a
pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly old fellow,
in pepper- and- salt clothes, with a sadly
humorous face ; and one whom I strongly
suspected of being poor,— he made such
efforts to be entertaining. When his story
was concluded, there was much laughter
and approbation, particularly from two or
three deputy aldermen, who had been
asleep the greater part of the time.
There was, however, one tall, dry- look­ing
old gentleman, with beetling eye­brows,
who maintained a grave and rather
severe face throughout; now and then
folding his arms, inclining his head, and
looking down upon the floor, as if turn­ing
a doubt over in his mind. He was
one of your wary men, who never laugh,
but on good grounds— when they have
reason and the law on their side. When
the mirth of the rest of the company had
subsided and silence was restored, he
leaned one arm on the elbow of his
chair, and sticking the other akimbo,
demanded, with a slight but exceedingly
sage motion of the head, and contraction
of the brow, what was the moral of the
story, and what it went to prove.
The story- teller, who was just putting
a glass of wine to his lips, as a refresh­ment
after his toils, paused for a moment,
looked at his inquirer with an air of in­finite
deference, and, lowering the glass
slowly to the table, observed, that the
story was intended most logically to
prove:—
I That there is no situation in life but
has its advantages and pleasures— pro­vided
we will but take a joke as we
find it.
" That, therefore, he that runs races
with goblin troopers is likely to have
rough riding of it.
1 Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to
be refused the hand of a Dutch heiress,
is a certain step to high preferment in
the state."
The cautious old gentleman knit his
brows tenfold closer after this expla­nation,
being sorely puzzled by the
ratiocination of the syllogism; while,
methought, the one in pepper- and- salt
eyed him with something of a tri­umphant
leer. At length he observed,
that all this was very well, but still he
thought the story a little on the ex­travagant—
there were one or two points
on which he had his doubts.
I Faith, sir," replied the story- teller,
" as to that matter, I don't believe one
half of it myself." D. K.
WOLFERT'S ROOST.
CHRONICLE I.
BOUT five- and- twenty miles from the ancient and renowned
city of Manhattan, formerly called New Amsterdam, and
vulgarly called New York, on the eastern bank of that ex­pansion
of the Hudson known among Dutch mariners of yore as the
Tappan Zee, being in fact the great Mediterranean Sea of the New
Netherlands, stands a little, old- fashioned stone mansion, all made up
of gable ends, and as full of angles and corners as an old cocked hat.
It is said, in fact, to have been modelled after the cocked hat of Peter
the Headstrong:, as the Escurial was modelled after the gridiron of
the blessed St. Lawrence. Though but of small dimensions, yet, like
many small people, it is of mighty spirit, and values itself greatly on
its antiquity, being one of the oldest edifices, for its size, in the whole
country. It claims to be an ancient seat of empire,— I may rather
say an empire in itself,— and like all empires, great and small, has had
its grand historical epochs. In speaking of this doughty and valorous
little pile, I shall call it by its usual appellation of " The Roost" ;
though that is a name given to it in modern days, since it became the
abode of the white man.
Its origin, in truth, dates far back in that remote region commonly
called the fabulous age, in which vulgar fact becomes mystified and
tinted up with delectable fiction. The eastern shore of the Tappan
Sea was inhabited in those days by an unsophisticated race, existing
37
38 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
in all the simplicity of nature ; that is to say, they lived by hunting
and fishing, and recreated themselves occasionally with a little toma­hawking
and scalping. Each stream that flows down from the hills
into the Hudson had its petty sachem, who ruled over a hand's- breadth
of forest on either side, and had his seat of government at its mouth.
The chieftain who ruled at the Roost was not merely a great warrior,
but a medicine- man, or prophet, or conjurer, for they all mean the
same thing in Indian parlance. Of his fighting propensities eviden­ces
still remain, in various arrow- heads of flint, and stone battle- axes,
occasionally digged up about the Roost; of his wizard powers we have
a token in a spring which wells up at the foot of the bank, on the very
margin of the river, which, it is said, was gifted by him with rejuve­nating
powers, something like the renowned Fountain of Youth in the
Floridas, so anxiously but vainly sought after by the veteran Ponce
de Leon. This story, however, is stoutly contradicted by an old
Dutch matter- of- fact tradition, which declares that the spring in ques­tion
was smuggled over from Holland in a churn, by Femmetie Van
Blarcom, wife of Goosen Garret Van Blarcom, one of the first
settlers, and that she took it up by night, unknown to her husband,
from beside their farm- house near Rotterdam, being sure she
should find no water equal to it in the new country ; — and she
was right.
The wizard sachem had a great passion for discussing territorial
questions, and settling boundary lines ; in other words, he had the
spirit of annexation. This kept him in continual feud with the
neighboring sachems, each of whom stood up stoutly for his hand-breadth
of territory ; so that there is not a petty stream or rugged hill
in the neighborhood that has not been the subject of long talks and
hard battles. The sachem, however, as has been observed, was a
medicine- man as well as warrior, and vindicated his claims by arts as
well as arms ; so that by dint of a little hard fighting here, and hocus-pocus
( or diplomacy) there, he managed to extend his boundary line
from field to field and stream to stream, until it brought him into col-
Wolf erf s Roost. 39
lision with the powerful sachem of Sing- Sing.* Many were the sharp
conflicts between these rival chieftains for the sovereignty of a wind­ing
valley, a favorite hunting- ground watered by a beautiful stream
called the Pocantico. Many were the ambuscades, surprisals, and
deadly onslaughts that took place among its fastnesses, of which it
grieves me much that I cannot pursue the details for the gratification
of those gentle but bloody- minded readers of both sexes, who delight
in the romance of the tomahawk and scalping- knife. Suffice it to
say, that the wizard chieftain was at length victorious, though his vic­tory
is attributed, in Indian tradition, to a great medicine or charm,
by which he laid the sachem of Sing- Sing and his warriors asleep
among the rocks and recesses of the valley, where they remain asleep
to the present day, with their bows and war- clubs beside them. This
was the origin of that potent and drowsy spell, which still prevails
over the valley of the Pocantico, and which has gained it the well-merited
appellation of Sleepy Hollow. Often, in secluded and quiet
parts of that valley, where the stream is overhung by dark woods and
rocks, the ploughman, on some calm and sunny day, as he shouts to
his oxen, is surprised at hearing faint shouts from the hill- sides in
reply; being, it is said, the spell- bound warriors, who half start from
their rocky couches and grasp their weapons, but sink to sleep again.
The conquest of the Pocantico was the last triumph of the wizard
sachem. Notwithstanding all his medicines and charms he fell in
battle in attempting to extend his boundary line to ths^ ast, so as to
take in the little wild valley of the Sprain ; and his grave is still
shown near the banks of that pastoral stream.. He left, however, a
great empire to his successors, extending along the Tappan Sea from
Yonkers quite to Sleepy Hollow, and known in all records and maps
by the Indian name of Wicquaes- Keck.
The wizard sachem was succeeded by a line of chiefs of whom
* A corruption of the old Indian name, O- sin- sing. Some have rendered it, O- sin- song, or O- sing-song,
in token of its being a great market- town, where any thing can be had for a mere song. Its present
melodious alteration to Sing- Sing is said to have been made in compliment to a Yankee singing- master
who taught the inhabitants the art- of singing through the nose.
40 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
nothing remarkable remains on record. One of them was the very
individual on whom master Hendrick Hudson and his mate Robert
Juet made that sage experiment gravely recorded by the latter, in the
narrative of the discovery.
| Our master and his mate determined to try some of the cheefe
men of the country, whether they had any treacherie in them. So
they took them down into the cabin, and gave them so much wine
and aqua vitse, that they were all very merrie ; one of them had his
wife with him, which sate so modestly as any of our countrywomen
would do in a strange place. In the end, one of them was drunke ;
and that was strange to them, for they could not tell how to take it." *
How far master Hendrick Hudson and his worthy mate carried
their experiment with the sachem's wife, is not recorded ; neither does
the curious Robert Juet make any mention of the after consequences
of this grand moral test; tradition, however, affirms that the sachem,
on landing, gave his modest spouse a hearty rib- roasting, according
to the connubial discipline of the aboriginals ; it further affirms that
he remained a hard drinker to the day of his death, trading away all
his lands, acre by acre, for aqua vitae ; by which means the Roost and
all its domains, fromYonkers to Sleepy Hollow, came, in the regular
course of trade, and by right of purchase, into the possession of the
Dutchmen.
The worthy government of the New Netherlands was not suffered
to enjoy this grand acquisition unmolested. In the year 1654, the
losel Yankees of Connecticut, those swapping, bargaining, squatting
enemies of the Manhattoes, made a daring inroad into this neighbor­hood,
and founded a colony called Westchester, or, as the ancient Dutch
records term it, Vest Dorp, in the right of one Thomas Pell, who
pretended to have purchased the whole surrounding country of the
Indians, and stood ready to argue their claims before any tribunal of
Christendom.
This happened during the chivalrous reign of Peter Stuyvesant,
* See Juet's Journal, " Purchas his Pilgrims."
VVolferfs Roost. 41
and raised the ire of that gunpowder old hero. Without waiting to
discuss claims and titles, he pounced at once upon the nest of nefari­ous
squatters, carried off twenty- five of them in chains to the Man-hattoes;
nor did he stay his hand, nor give rest to his wooden leg,
until he had driven the rest of the Yankees back into Connecticut,
or obliged them to acknowledge allegiance to their High Mighti­nesses.
In revenge, however, they introduced the plague of witch­craft
into the province. This doleful malady broke out at Vest Dorp,
and would have spread throughout the country had not the Dutch
farmers nailed horse- shoes to the doors of their houses and barns,
sure protections against witchcraft, many of which remain to the
present day.
The seat of empire of the wizard sachem now came into the pos­session
of Wolfert Acker, one of the privy councillors of Peter
Stuyvesant. He was a worthy, but ill- starred man, whose aim
through life had been to live in peace and quiet. For this he had
emigrated from Holland, driven abroad by family feuds and wran­gling
neighbors. He had warred for quiet through the fidgety reign
of William the Testy, and the fighting reign of Peter the Head­strong,
sharing in every brawl and rib- roasting, in his eagerness to
keep the peace and promote public tranquillity. It was his doom, in
fact, to meet a head- wind at every turn, and be kept in a constant
fume and fret by the perverseness of mankind. Had he served on a
modern jury, he would have been sure to have eleven unreasonable
men opposed to him.
At the time when the province of the New Netherlands was wrested
from the domination of their High Mightinesses by the combined
forces of Old and New England, Wolfert retired in high dudgeon to
this fastness in the wilderness, with bitter determination to bury him­self
from the world, and live here for the rest of his days in peace and
quiet. In token of that fixed purpose, he inscribed over his door
( his teeth clenched at the time) his favorite Dutch motto, " Lust in
Rust" ( pleasure in quiet). The mansion was thence called Wolfert's
42 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Rust ( Wolfert's Rest), but by the uneducated, who did not under­stand
Dutch, Wolfert's Roost; probably from its quaint cockloft look,
and from its having a weathercock perched on every gable.
Wolfert's luck followed him into retirement. He had shut him­self
up from the world, but he had brought with him a wife, and it
soon passed into a proverb throughout the neighborhood that the
cock of the Roost was the most henpecked bird in the country. His
house too was reputed to be harassed by Yankee witchcraft. When
the weather was quiet everywhere else, the wind, it was said, would
howl and whistle about the gables ; witches and warlocks would whirl
about upon the weathercocks, and scream down the chimneys; nay,
it was even hinted that Wolfert's wife was in league with the enemy,
and used to ride on a broomstick to a witches' Sabbath in Sleepy
Hollow. This, however, was all mere scandal, founded perhaps on
her occasionally flourishing a broomstick in the course of a curtain
lecture, or raising a storm within doors, as termagant wives are apt
to do, and against which sorcery horse- shoes are of no avail.
Wolfert Acker died and was buried, but found no quiet even in
the grave ; for if popular gossip be true, his ghost has occasionally
been seen walking by moonlight among the old gray moss- grown
trees of his apple orchard.
CHRONICLE II.
THE next period at which we find this venerable and eventful pile
rising into importance, was during the dark and troublous time of the
revolutionary war. It was the keep or stronghold of Jacob Van
Tassel, a valiant Dutchman of the old stock of Van Tassels, who
abound in Westchester County. The name, as originally written,
was Van Texel, being derived from the Texel in Holland, which gave
birth to that heroic line.
Wolfert's Roost. 43
The Roost stood in the very heart of what at that time was called
the debatable ground, lying between the British and American lines.
The British held possession of the city and island of New York ;
while the Americans drew up towards the Highlands, holding their
head- quarters at Peekskill. The intervening country from Croton
River to Spiting Devil Creek was the debatable ground in question,
liable to be harried by friend and foe, like the Scottish borders of yore.
It is a rugged region, full of fastnesses. A line of rocky hills ex­tends
through it like a backbone sending out ribs on either side ; but
these rude hills are for the most part richly wooded, and enclose
little fresh pastoral valleys watered by the Neperan, the Pocantico,*
and other beautiful streams, alone: which the Indians built their wigf-warns
in the olden time.
In the fastnesses of these hills, and along these valleys, existed,
in the time of which I am treating, and indeed exist to the present
day, a race of hard- headed, stout- hearted yeomen, descendants of the
primitive Nederlanders,— men obstinately attached to the soil, and
neither to be fought nor bought out of their paternal acres. Most
of them were strong Whigs throughout the war ; some, however, were
Tories, or adherents to the old kingly rule, who considered the revo­lution
a mere rebellion, soon to be put down by his majesty's forces.
A number of these took refuge within the British lines, joined the
military bands of refugees, and became pioneers or leaders to foraging
parties sent out from New York to scour the country and sweep off
supplies for the British army.
In a little while the debatable ground became infested by roving
bands, claiming from either side, and all pretending to redress wrongs
* The Neperan, vulgarly called the Saw- Mill River, winds for many miles through a lovely valley,
shrouded by groves, and dotted by Dutch farm- houses, and empties itself into the Hudson at the an­cient
Dorp of Yonkers. The Pocantico, rising among woody hills, winds in many a wizard maze
through the sequestered haunts of Sleepy Hollow. We owe it to the indefatigable researches of Mr.
KNICKERBOCKER, that those beautiful streams are rescued from modern commonplace, and reinvested
with their ancient Indian names. The correctness of the venerable historian may be ascertained by
reference to the records of the original Indian grants to the Herr Frederick Philipsen, preserved in the
county clerk's office at White Plains.
44 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
and punish political offences; but all prone, in the exercise of their
high functions, to sack hen- roosts, drive off cattle, and lay farm-houses
under contribution. Such was the origin of two great orders
of border chivalry, the Skinners and the Cow Boys, famous in revolu­tionary
story ; the former fought, or rather marauded, under the
American, the latter under the British banner. In the zeal of serv­ice,
both were apt to make blunders, and confound the property of
friend and foe. Neither of them in the heat and hurry of a foray had
time to ascertain the politics of a horse or cow, which they were driv­ing
off into captivity; nor, when they wrung the neck of a rooster,
did they trouble their heads whether he crowed for Congress or King
George.
To check these enormities, a confederacy was formed among the
yeomanry who had suffered from these maraudings. It was composed
for the most part of farmers' sons, bold, hard- riding lads, well armed
and well mounted, and undertook to clear the country round of
Skinner and Cow Boy, and all other border vermin ; as the Holy
Brotherhood in old times cleared Spain of the banditti which infested
her highways.
Wolfert's Roost was one of the rallying places of this confederacy,
and Jacob Van Tassel one of its members. He was eminently fitted
for the service ; stout of frame, bold of heart, and like his predecessor,
the warrior sachem of yore, delighting in daring enterprises. He had
an Indian's sagacity in discovering when the enemy was on the maraud,
and in hearing the distant tramp of cattle. It seemed as if he had a
scout on every hill, and an ear as quick as that of Fine Ear in the
fairy- tale.
The foraging parties of Tories and refugees had now to be secret
and sudden in their forays into Westchester County ; to make a hasty
maraud among the farms, sweep the cattle into a drove, and hurry
down to the lines along the river road, or the valley of the Neperan.
Before they were half- way down, Jacob Van Tassel, with the holy
brotherhood of Tarrytown, Petticoat Lane, and Sleepy Hollow would
Wolfert's Roost. 45
be clattering at their heels. And now there would be a general
scamper for King's Bridge, the pass over Spiting Devil Creek, into
the British lines. Sometimes the moss- troopers would be overtaken,
and eased of part of their booty. Sometimes the whole cavalgada
would urge its headlong- course across the bridge with thundering
tramp and dusty whirlwind. At such times their pursuers would rein
up their steeds, survey that perilous pass with wary eye, and, wheeling
about, indemnify themselves by foraging the refugee region of Morris-ania.
While the debatable land was liable to be thus harried, the great
Tappan Sea, along which it extends, was likewise domineered over by
the foe. British ships of war were anchored here and there in the
wide expanse of the river, mere floating castles to hold it in subjection.
Stout galleys armed with eighteen pounders and navigated with sails
and oars, cruised about like hawks, while row- boats made descents
upon the land, and foraged the country along shore.
It was a sore grievance to the yeomanry along the Tappan Sea to
behold that little Mediterranean ploughed by hostile prows, and the
noble river of which they were so proud reduced to a state of thraldom.
Councils of war were held by captains of market- boats and other- river-craft
to devise ways and means of dislodging the enemy. Here and
there on a point of land extending into the Tappan Sea, a mud work
would be thrown up, and an old field- piece mounted, with which a knot
of rustic artillerymen would fire away for a long summer's day at some
frigate dozing at anchor far out of reach ; and reliques of such works
may still be seen overgrown with weeds and brambles, with perad-venture
the half- buried fragment of a cannon which may have burst.
Jacob Van Tassel was a prominent man in these belligerent opera­tions
; but he was prone, moreover, to carry on a petty warfare of his
own for his individual recreation and refreshment. On a row of
hooks above the fireplace of the Roost, reposed his great piece of
ordnance— a duck, or rather goose- gun, of unparalleled longitude,
with which it was said he could kill a wild goose half way across the
46 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Tappan Sea. Indeed, there are as many wonders told of this
renowned gun, as of the enchanted weapons of classic story. When
the belligerent feeling was strong upon Jacob, he would take down
his gun, sally forth alone, and prowl along shore, dodging behind
rocks and trees, watching for hours together any ship or galley at
anchor or becalmed, as a valorous mo user will watch a rat- hole. So
sure as a boat approached the shore, bang went the great goose- gun,
sending on board a shower of slugs and buck- shot; and away scut­tled
Jacob Van Tassel through some woody ravine. As the Roost
stood in a lonely situation, and might be attacked, he guarded against
surprise by making loop- holes in the stone walls, through which to
fire upon an assailant. His wife was stout- hearted as himself, and
could load as fast as he could fire ; and his sister, Nochie Van Wurm-er,
a redoubtable widow, was a match, at he said, for the stoutest man
in the country. Thus garrisoned, his little castle was fitted to stand
a siege, and Jacob was the man to defend it to the last charge of
powder.
In the process of time the Roost became one of the secret sta­tions,
or lurking- places, of the Water Guard. This was an aquatic
corps in the pay of the government, organized to range the waters of
the Hudson, and keep watch upon the movements of the enemy. It
was composed of nautical men of the river, and hardy youngsters
of the adjacent country, expert at pulling an oar or handling a musket.
They were provided with whale- boats, long and sharp, shaped like
canoes, and formed to lie lightly on the water, and be rowed with
great rapidity. In these they would lurk out of sight by day, in
nooks and bays, and behind points of land, keeping a sharp look- out
upon the British ships, and giving intelligence to head- quarters of any
extraordinary movement. At night they rowed about in pairs, pull­ing
quietly along with muffled oars, under shadow of the land, or
gliding like spectres about frigates and guard- ships to cut off any boat
that might be sent to shore. In this way they were a source of con­stant
uneasiness and alarm to the enemy.
Wolferfs Roost. 47
The Roost, as has been observed, was one of their lurking- places ;
having a cove in front where their whale- boats could be drawn up out
of sight, and Jacob Van Tassel being a vigilant ally, ready to take a
part in any " scout or scrummage" by land or water. At this little
warrior nest the hard- riding lads from the hills would hold consulta­tions
with the chivalry of the river, and here were concerted divers of
those daring enterprises which resounded from Spiting Devil Creek,
even unto Anthony's Nose. Here was concocted the midnight inva­sion
of New York Island, and the conflagration of Delancy's Tory
mansion, which makes such a blaze in revolutionary history. Nay,
more, if the traditions of the Roost may be credited, here was medi­tated,
by Jacob Van Tassel and his compeers, a nocturnal foray into
New York itself, to surprise and carry off the British commanders,
Howe and Clinton, and put a triumphant close to the war.
There is no knowing whether this notable scheme might not have
been carried into effect, had not one of Jacob Van Tassel's egregious
exploits along shore with his goose- gun, with which he thought him­self
a match for any thing, brought vengeance on his house.
It so happened that in the course of one of his solitary prowls he
descried a British transport aground; the stern swung toward shore
within point- blank shot. The temptation was too great to be resisted.
Bang! went the great goose- gun, from the covert of the trees, shiver­ing
the cabin- windows and driving all hands forward. Bang ! bang !
the shots were repeated. The reports brought other of Jacob's fellow
bush- fighters to the spot. Before the transport could bring a gun to
bear, or land a boat to take revenge, she was soundly peppered, and
the coast evacuated.
This was the last of Jacob's triumphs. He fared like some heroic
spider that has unwittingly ensnared a hornet to the utter ruin of his
web. It was not long after the above exploit that he fell into the
hands of the enemy in the course of one of his forays, and was carried
away prisoner to New York. The Roost itself, as a pestilent rebel
nest, was marked out for signal punishment. The cock of the Roost
48 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
being captive, there was none to garrison it but his stout- hearted
spouse, his redoubtable sister, Nochie Van Wurmer, and Dinah, a
strapping negro wench. An armed vessel came to anchor in front;
a boat full of men pulled to shore. The garrison flew to arms ; that
that is to say, to mops, broomsticks, shovels, tongs, and all kinds of
domestic weapons,— for unluckily the great piece of ordnance, the
eoose- gfun, was absent with its owner. Above all, a vigorous defence
was made with that most potent of female weapons, the tongue.
Never did invaded hen- roost make a more vociferous outcry. It was
all in vain. The house was sacked and plundered, fire was set to
each corner, and in a few moments its blaze shed a baleful light far
over the Tappan Sea. The invaders then pounced upon the bloom­ing
Laney Van Tassel, the beauty of the Roost, and endeavored to
bear her off to the boat. But here was the real tug of war. The
mother, the aunt, and the strapping negro wench, all flew to the
rescue. The struggle continued down to the very waters' edge, when
a voice from the armed vessel at anchor ordered the spoilers to desist \
they relinquished their prize, jumped into their boats, and pulled off,
and the heroine of the Roost escaped with a mere rumpling of her
feathers.
As to the stout Jacob himself, he was detained a prisoner in New
York for the greater part of the war; in the meantime the Roost re­mained
a melancholy ruin, its stone walls and brick chimneys alone
standing, the resorts of bats and owls. Superstitious notions prevailed
about it. None of the country people would venture alone at night
down the rambling lane which led to it, overhung with trees, and
crossed here and there by a wild wandering brook. The story went
that one of the victims of Jacob Van Tassel's great goose- gun had
been buried there in unconsecrated ground.
Even the Tappan Sea in front was said to be haunted. Often in
the still twilight of a summer evening, when the sea would be as glass,
and the opposite hills would throw their purple shadows half across it,
a low sound would be heard as of the steady, vigorous pull of oars,
< l
ov^ r^ p<? witty tmj.":
Wolferfs Roost. 49
though not a boat was to be descried. Some might have supposed that
a boat was rowed along unseen under the deep shadows of the opposite
shores ; but the ancient traditionists of the neighborhood knew better.
Some said it was one of the whale- boats of the old Water Guard,
sunk by the British ships during the war, but now permitted to haunt
its old cruising- grounds ; but the prevalent opinion connected it with
the awful fate of Rambout Van Dam, of graceless memory. He was
a roistering Dutchman of Spiting Devil, who in times long past had
navigated his boat alone one Saturday the whole length of the Tap-pan
Sea, to attend a quilting frolic at Kakiat, on the western shore.
Here he had danced and drunk until midnight, when he entered his
boat to return home. He was warned that he was on the verge of
Sunday morning; but he pulled off nevertheless, swearing he would
not land until he reached Spiting Devil, if it took him a month of
Sundays. He was never seen afterwards ; but may be heard plying
his oars, as above mentioned,— being the Flying Dutchman of the
Tappan Sea, doomed to ply between Kakiat and Spiting Devil until
the day of judgment.
CHRONICLE III.
THE revolutionary war was over. The debatable ground had once
more become a quiet agricultural region; the border chivalry had
turned their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks,
and hung up their guns only to be taken down occasionally
in a campaign against wild pigeons on the hills, or wild ducks upon
the Hudson. Jacob Van Tassel, whilome carried captive to New
York, a flagitious rebel, had come forth from captivity a " hero of
seventy- six." In a little while he sought the scenes of his former
triumphs and mishaps, rebuilt the Roost, restored his goose- gun to
the hooks over the fireplace, and reared once more on high the
glittering weathercocks.
50 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Years and years passed over the time- honored little mansion.
The honeysuckle and the sweetbrier crept up its walls ; the wren and
the Phcebe- bird built under the eaves; it gradually became almost
hidden among trees, through which it looked forth, as with half- shut
eyes, upon the Tappan Sea. The Indian spring, famous in the days
of the wizard sachem, still welled up at the bottom of the green bank;
and the wild brook, wild as ever, came babbling down the ravine, and
threw itself into the little cove where of yore the Water Guard har­bored
their whale- boats.
Such was the state of the Roost many years since, at the time
when Diedrich Knickerbocker came into this neighborhood, in the
course of his researches among the Dutch families for materials for
his immortal history. The exterior of the eventful little pile seemed
to him full of promise. The crow- step gables were of the primitive
architecture of the province. The weathercocks which surmounted
them had crowed in the glorious days of the New Netherlands. The
one above the porch had actually glittered of yore on the great Vander
Heyden palace at Albany.
The interior of the mansion fulfilled its external promise. Here
were records of old times ; documents of the Dutch dynasty, rescued
from the profane hands of the English by Wolfert Acker when he re­treated
from New Amsterdam. Here he had treasured them up like
buried gold, and here they had been miraculously preserved by St.
Nicholas at the time of the conflagration of the Roost.
Here then did old Diedrich Knickerbocker take up his abode for
a time, and set to work with antiquarian zeal to decipher these
precious documents which, like the lost books of Livy, had baffled
the research of former historians, and it is the facts drawn from these
sources which give his work the preference, in point of accuracy, over
every other history.
It was during his sojourn in this eventful neighborhood that the
historian is supposed to have picked up many of those legends which
have since been given by him to the world, or found among his
*< « sr 9W « »
" > *
":& wild brool^ ^ A, A^ b& bbHr?<: down
^ r;<? ichborii7<? raviDf
• It i; h v^ r* a? l? r d i f i r r , partly © f - j t 0 ^ IM p^ rf! y of b r i ^ ,
d* Y5 ° f t|? e proving.**
VVolfert ' s Roost, 51
papers. Such was the legend connected with the old Dutch Church
of Sleepy Hollow. The church itself was a monument of by- gone
days. It had been built in the early times of the province. A tablet
over the portal bore the names of its founders— Frederick Philipsen,
a mighty man of yore, patroon of Yonkers, and his wife Katrina Van
Courtlandt, of the Van Courtlandts of Croton, a powerful family con­nection,—
with one foot resting on Spiting Devil Creek and the other
on the Croton River.
Two weathercocks, with the initials of these illustrious personages,
graced each end of the church, one perched over the belfry, the other
over the chancel. As usual with ecclesiastical weathercocks, each
pointed a different way, and there was a perpetual contradiction be­tween
them on all points of windy doctrine— emblematic, alas ! of the
Christian propensity to schism and controversy.
In the burying- ground adjacent to the church reposed the earliest
fathers of a- wide rural neighborhood. Here families were garnered
together, side by side, in long platoons in this last gathering- place of
kindred. With pious hand would Diedrich Knickerbocker turn down
the weeds and bramble's which had overgrown the tombstones to
decipher inscriptions in Dutch and English of the names and virtues
of succeeding generations of Van Tassels, Van Warts, and other
historical worthies, with their portraitures faithfully carved, all bearing
the family likeness to cherubs.
The congregation in those days was of a truly rural character.
City fashions had not as yet stole up to Sleepy Hollow. Dutch sun-bonnets
and honest homespun still prevailed. Every thing was in
primitive style, even to the bucket of water and tin cup near the
door in summer, to assuage the thirst caused by the heat of the
weather or the drought of the sermon.
The pulpit, with its widespreading sounding- board, and the
communion- table, curiously carved, had each come from Holland in
the olden time, before the arts had sufficiently advanced in the colony
for such achievements. Around these on Sundays would be gath-
52 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
ered the elders of the church, gray- headed men, who led the psalmody,
and in whom it would be difficult to recognize the hard- riding lads of
yore, who scoured the debatable land in the time of the Revolution.
The drowsy influence of Sleepy Hollow was apt to breathe into
this sacred edifice ; and now and then an elder might be seen with
his handkerchief over his face to keep off the flies, and apparently
listening to the dominie ; but really sunk into a summer slumber,
lulled by the sultry notes of the locust from the neighboring trees.
And now a word or two about Sleepy Hollow, which many have
rashly deemed a fanciful creation, like the Lubberland of mariners.
It was probably the mystic and dreamy sound of the name which first
tempted the historian of the Manhattoes into its spellbound mazes.
As he entered, all nature seemed for the moment to awake from its
slumbers and break forth in gratulations. The quail whistled a wel­come
from the cornfield ; the loquacious cat- bird flew from bush to
bush with restless wing, proclaiming his approach, or perked inquisi­tively
into his face as if to get a knowledge of his physiognomy.
The woodpecker tapped a tattoo on the hollow apple- tree, and then
peered round the trunk, as if asking how he relished the salutation ;
while the squirrel scampered along the fence, whisking his tail over
his head by way of a huzza.
Here reigned the golden mean extolled by poets, in which no gold
was to be found and very little silver. The inhabitants of the Hol­low
were of the primitive stock, and had intermarried and bred in
and in, from the earliest times of the province, never swarming far
from the parent hive, but dividing and subdividing their paternal
acres as they swarmed.
Here were small farms, each having its little portion of meadow
and cornfield ; its orchard of gnarled and sprawling apple- trees ; its
garden, in which the rose, the marigold, and hollyhock grew sociably
with the cabbage, the pea, and the pumpkin ; each had its low- eaved
mansion redundant with white- headed children ; with an old hat
nailed against the wall for the housekeeping wren ; the coop on the
£ 4 Wi?? r^ \\ j$ f © ( j^ ti^ o wi^ dj iff wij& rd jtrx&' V
Wolferfs Roost. 53
grass- plot, where the motherly hen clucked round with her vagrant
brood ; each had its stone well, with a moss- covered bucket suspended
to the long balancing- pole, according to antediluvian hydraulics ;
while within doors resounded the eternal hum of the spinning- wheel.
Many were the great historical facts which the worthy Diedrich
collected in these lowly mansions, and patiently would he sit by the
old Dutch housewives with a child on his knee, or a purring grimalkin
on his lap, listing to endless ghost stories spun forth to the humming
accompaniment of the wheel.
The delighted historian pursued his explorations far into
the foldings of the hills where the Pocantico winds its wizard
stream among the mazes of its old Indian haunts; sometimes
running darkly in pieces of woodland beneath balancing sprays
of beech and chestnut; sometimes sparkling between grassy borders
in fresh, green intervals; here and there receiving the tributes of
silver rills which came whimpering down the hill- sides from their
parent springs.
In a remote part of the Hollow, where the Pocantico forced its way
down rugged rocks, stood Carl's mill, the haunted house of the neigh­borhood.
It was indeed a goblin- looking pile; shattered and time-worn,
dismal with clanking wheels and rushing streams, and all kinds
of uncouth noises. A horse- shoe nailed to the door to keep off
witches, seemed to have lost its power, for as Diedrich approached,
an old negro thrust his head all dabbled with flour out of a hole above
the water- wheel, and grinned and rolled his eyes, and appeared to be
the very hobgoblin of the place. Yet this proved to be the great
historic genius of the Hollow, abounding in that valuable information
never to be acquired from books. Diedrich Knickerbocker soon
discovered his merit. They had long talks together seated on a broken
millstone, heedless of the water and the clatter of the mill; and to his
conference with that African sage many attribute the surprising, though
true story, of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman of Sleepy
Hollow. We refrain, however, from giving further researches of the
54 The Legend of Sleefy Hollow.
historian of the Manhattoes during his sojourn at the Roost, but may
return to them in future pages.
Reader ! the Roost still exists. Time, which changes all things,
is slow in its operations on a Dutchman's dwelling. The stout Jacob
Van Tassel, it is true, sleeps with his fathers ; and his great goose- gun
with him ; yet his stronghold still bears the impress of its Dutch ori­gin.
Odd rumors have gathered about it, as they are apt to do about
old mansions, like moss and weather- stains. The shade of Wolfert
Acker still walks his unquiet rounds at night in the orchard ; and a
white figure has now and then been seen seated at a window and
gazing at the moon, from a room in which a young lady is said to
have died of love and green apples.
Mementos of the sojourn of Diedrich Knickerbocker are still
cherished at the Roost. His elbow- chair and antique writing- desk
maintain their place in the room he occupied, and his old cocked- hat
still hangs on a peg against the wall.
rsm
mym
v*$ mi
m * F » . . * t l
WASHINGTON IRVING.
HE name of Washington Irving is more intimately associated
in the popular American mind with the legend of Rip Van
Winkle than with any other of his works. This is probably
largely due to Mr. Joseph Jefferson's inimitable representation of
this character, which has been kept constantly before the public for
so many years. But in England, where Irving's works have been
read more widely than those of any other American author, the
Legend of Sleepy Hollow is regarded by many as his finest literary
production. The scene of this legend is located in one of the most
picturesque regions of the valley of the Hudson, about an hour's
55
OTi W^ WfeM^ t.
3Pm • W1
•% ft ®
\
H « \^ i^ n
nAA
3* « a
< •
* § ey\^ t'"^ ^ rkjipe ^ t wW ^ rh^ 7 b° r< krj"
TlA ° W TVIdii?* A^ fi° o
ride by rail from New York, and less than three miles from Sunny-side,
which was the home of the author during the latter years of
his life.
If one leaves the hot, noisy city as we did one afternoon late in
June, reaching Tarrytown just as the shades of night were falling
over the river, and the dim, purple hues of the mountains were
fading from view, and is driven up the winding, climbing streets while
the cool, pure evening air, redolent with the rose and honeysuckle
soothes him into a state of blissful rest, he will undoubtedly feel as we
did, that it is one of the most beautiful spots on earth Certain it is,
that much of the culture and wealth of the great metropolis has
given substantial expression to this opinion, as shown in the hundreds
57
" TK bnd* K f^ 0^- 5" ' P Q0-^, ir7 V° ry I
" fffrt, tb? p> f?* v<, I 5tt vp ^ y WM § W| t!?* t
Washington Irving. 59
of beautiful country residences which lie embowered on the hillsides,
or from the heights look out over the blue waters of the Tap-pan
Zee.
The view from the summit of the hill overlooking Tarrytown is a
magnificent one. The Hudson stretches away toward the north and
is lost among the mountains of the Highlands. The entrance to
Sleepy Hollow is also seen in this direction, just on the outskirts of
the village, with the steeple of the old Dutch Church rising above
the foliage of the elm and locust trees which surround it, and its
ancient burying- ground " sloping up the gentle acclivity." Toward
the south you can almost see the quaintly picturesque roof of Sunny-side
nestling among; the trees on the river bank. From the car win-dows
on the right, a few minutes after the train leaves Irvington, you
catch a glimpse of its white gables and walls half covered with ivy
and rose vines, and the little brook which Irving describes as " bab­bling
down a neighboring ravine" and " crossing and recrossing the
lonely, rambling, down- hill lane."
There are a few architectural reminiscences of the olden time
still remaining in Tarrytown, but these will not long be spared by
the irresistible commercial spirit of the age.
The old Paulding Mansion was torn down a few weeks after the
artist's visit. This old landmark had acquired the dignity of years
before the stormy scenes of the American Revolution, during which
time it was a famous hostlery and was often visited by Washington.
A cannon- ball from a British frigate is said to have penetrated its
walls and lodged in the mattress of a bed upon which a sick woman
lay. Later, when the house became the home of the Pauldings, there
must often have been gathered beneath its roof the most brilliant in­tellectual
and social life of this region. Here lived James K. Pauld­ing,
one of the pioneers of American literature, a brother- in- law of
Washington Irving, and with him associated as one of the famous
trio who wrote and published the Salmagundi papers. This old
homestead was the scene of Irving's first visit to Tarrytown. There
60 Washington Irving.
are those living who have often heard him describe his early visits
here, and the excursions which he made into the surrounding country.
One of his favorite pastimes, as he has himself told us, was to wander
away with his gun or rod into the quiet recesses of Sleepy Hollow,
following the Pocantico where it " winds its wizard stream, sometimes
silently and darkly through solemn woodlands, sometimes sparkling
between grassy borders, in fresh green meadows ; sometimes stealing
along rugged heights, under the balancing sprays of beach and chest­nut
trees." Again he would take a boat and paddle or float leisurely
along down the river, sometimes stopping to make a brief predatory
excursion into some tempting orchard on the bank, but finally, almost
invariably landing in the little cove which then indented the shore
just below Wolfert's Roost. Irving's purchase of the Roost, many
years afterwards, is one of the rare instances of the realization of the
dreams of youth, for it was during these boyhood rambles that the
desire to own this beautiful spot as his home first occurred to him.
The old house which Irving described as the home of Baltas Van
Tassel, where lived the blooming, rosy- cheeked Katrina, is still
standing on the street which leads out of the village towards Sleepy
Hollow.
A little farther up this same street we find the monument erected
to commemorate the capture of Major Andre. A bronze statue of
Paulding, of heroic size, surmounts the granite shaft. The pose of
the figure is graceful, and represents the leader of Andrews captors as
standing in an expectant attitude, looking up the road along which
on that fateful morning the brave but unfortunate young officer
approached the place of his capture. He stopped beneath the shade
of an old tulip- tree to allow his horse to drink from the little brook
which runs down the ravine towards the Hudson. His captors
stepped from their place of concealment a few feet away, and his
doom was sealed by the discovery of the papers which showed him
to be a spy acting in conjunction with the traitor Arnold. The old
tulip- tree beneath which he was arrested was destroyed by lightning
WKwms& tfo.
of
in 1801, on the day that the news of Arnold's death reached Tarry-town.
But a sprout from the old stump, now itself grown to a
large tree, marks the exact spot where the historical old tulip spread
its enormous branches. The most important inscription is on the
south side of the monument and reads as follows : " On this Spot,
the 23rd day of September, 1780, the Spy, Major John Andre,
Adjutant General of the British Army, was captured by John
Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart, all natives of this
country. History has told the rest.
61
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Washington Irving. 63
" The people of Westchester County have erected this monument
as well to commemorate a great event as to testify their high estima­tion
of that integrity and patriotism which rejected every temptation,
rescued the United States from most imminent peril, by baffling the
arts of a spy and the plots of a traitor."
Leaving the monument we wandered on up the road a little dis­tance,
and turning to the left descended a hill and entered the famous
valley of Sleepy Hollow.
We passed over " the bridge famous in goblin story " where Brom
Bones, disguised as the headless horseman, hurled his pumpkin head
at his unfortunate rival, and turning to the right entered the path
which follows the Pocantico in its winding's through the glens and
meadows and forests of Sleepy Hollow. There on our left on its
" green bank shaded by trees," stands the old Dutch Church built
more than two centuries ago by " that mighty patron of the olden
time, Frederick Philipsen."
The windows peep out through a mass of ivy which almost com­pletely
conceals the walls wherein still remain many of the bricks
brought over from Holland by the devout pilgrims. I observed the
two ancient weathercocks still pointing in opposite directions as they
did when Irving compared them in his quaintly humorous way to the
early Christian settlers with strong- propensities for schism and con­troversy.
One pointed steadfastly toward northeast and the other
rigidly insisted that the wind was blowing up from the southwest.
As a northeast storm was prevailing at the time it was evident that
one, at least, of these rivals in windy controversies was right, which
is more than can always be said of theological disputants.' The sky
cleared during the night, and when I returned, the fresh cool breezes,
tempered by the sunshine of a June morning, were blowing down from
the Catskills and Highlands of the Hudson; but those inflexible prog-nosticators
of foul weather still maintained, as I suppose they have
been doing through all the sunshine of two hundred years, that storms
were approaching from opposite directions.
64 Washington Irving.
I sat down on the stone steps of the ancient edifice, and looking
out through the drooping branches of elm and willow across the daisy-covered
fields, watched the white- winged schooners and the excursion
steamers gaily ornamented with the flags of all nations, as they passed
like an endless panorama up and down the river. To allow one's
self to drift into revery under such circumstances, with such surround­ings,
is the most natural thing that can happen. My imagination ran
back over the past to the time when the first congregations gathered
here. Their method of worship was in keeping with their rude
primitive, hardy life.
The entire family embarked in their heavy farm- wagon early in
the morning and journeyed ten, twelve, or twenty miles, over rough
roads. They would have felt wronged and cheated had they been
turned away with one of our mild modern sermons of twenty minutes'
duration. The pulpit orators of those days were estimated more by
the vigor of their voice than by the subtlety of their thought. They
preached a hardy theology, and the greater part of the day, with an
intermission at noon for lunch, was devoted to their efforts. The
Reverend J. K. Allen in a lecture on " The Legendary History of the
Old Dutch Church of S