Sleepy Hollow Countryby Jim Logan Visitors to “Sleepy Hollow Country,” as Washington Irving called the area, can explore a number of historic locations related to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Irving himself. Except for Irving's hometown of Manhattan, the following listings are all within a few minutes drive of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. If you don't mind a little walking, you can easily trace Ichabod Crane's famous ride up the Albany Post Road (now Route 9, Broadway). There are several local sites Irving may have had in mind for the Van Tassel farm, but the dominant version revolves around the former Elizabeth Van Tassel house at what is now the northeast corner of Hamilton Place and North Broadway in Tarrytown, now occupied by the Landmark Condominium building. From the site of the Elizabeth Van Tassel house, walk north about 0.3 mile on Route 9 (North Broadway) to the André captors' monument in Patriots Park, the spot where Ichabod was met by the headless horseman. From here you can, if you wish, approximate Ichabod's flight by galloping frantically along Broadway until you reach the Old Dutch Church, about 0.6 mile. Old Dutch Burying Ground and the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow photo by Rob Yasinsac The burying ground in which the unfortunate Ichabod sought refuge is the yard of the Old Dutch Church, not the adjacent Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, which had not been established at the time Irving wrote the Legend. The burying ground is of course the purported haunt of a certain headless Hessian, but also the resting place of local citizens who likely inspired Irving's characters of Katrina Van Tassel, Brom Bones, and others in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The Friends of the Old Dutch Burying Ground offer free guided tours of the burying ground from Memorial Day Weekend through the end of October, Sundays at 2:00 p.m. Meet in the churchyard. Or purchase a copy of their Tales of the Old Dutch Burying Ground from Sleepy Hollow Gifts Online, or at the museum shop at Philipsburg Manor. A fold-out map at the center of the book guides you through the churchyard. Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow and Old Dutch Burying Ground, Route 9 across from Philipsburg Manor, Sleepy Hollow, NY, at the south gate to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, www.olddutchburyingground.org “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 church-yard, 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 church-yard before daybreak.”  Sleepy Hollow CemeterySleepy Hollow Cemetery surrounds the Old Dutch Burying Ground, the spot identified in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow as the resting place of the headless horseman. Washington Irving is laid to rest in the southern end of the cemetery in a plot overlooking the old church and its burying ground. Other famous individuals buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery include Andrew Carnegie, Walter Chrysler, William Rockefeller, and Elizabeth Arden. Pick up a free map of the grounds at the cemetery office located about 1/4 mile north of the Old Dutch Church on Route 9 (North Broadway). Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, 540 North Broadway, Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591, www.sleepyhollowcemetery.org Sunnyside photo by Rob Yasinsac Washington Irving’s meticulously restored home is filled with the author's possessions including his writing desk and books. Originally a Dutch farmer’s house, it is now a property of the non-profit Historic Hudson Valley and open for tours. Seasonal events are offered, such as a 4th of July celebration and candlelight tours at Christmas. Located on West Sunnyside Lane, off Route 9 (South Broadway), about 3-1/2 miles south of the Old Dutch Church. West Sunnyside Lane, Tarrytown, NY 10591, 914-631-8200, www.hudsonvalley.org/sunnyside/index.htm Patriots Park and the André Captors’ monumentThe marshy area where Ichabod first encountered the headless horseman has long since been drained, but its stream still flows through a park shared by the villages of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. A monument marks the spot where, on September 23, 1780, John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart captured British spy John André and exposed Benedict Arnold's treasonous attempt to turn over West Point to the British. At this same location Ichabod, too, met a fateful sentry. Today, beware of sport utility vehicles of large dimensions rushing along Broadway.
The park and monument are located on the west side of Route 9 (Broadway) at the border between Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown. Site of the Elizabeth Van Tassel house, later known as Mott Tavern
Others place the setting of the Van Tassel homestead as far south as Irving's own home, Sunnyside. These likely derive their geography from Irving's sketch Wolfert's Roost in which the author resurrected his pen name of Geoffrey Crayon, used for fiction like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and the fictitious "historian" Diedrich Knickerbocker for one more tongue-in-cheek, irreverent episode in the history of the former Dutch colony of New Netherlands. In Wolfert's Roost Irving invents a mock-epic history for his own home, attaching it to his own The Legend of Sleepy Hollow as well as to a comic incident during the Revolutionary War. Irving would likely be amused that this tall tale still has a life of its own after 150 years. Landmark Condominium, 18 North Broadway (1 block north of Main Street), Tarrytown, NY 10591 Philipsburg Manor
Frederick Philipse, the builder of the grist mill and manor house, was also the builder of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow. Philipsburg Manor is now a living history museum where you can experience Sleepy Hollow's agrarian past. It is a restoration of the 17th century Dutch manor beside whose millpond Ichabod Crane strolled with fair companions. You may need to supply your own bevy of country damsels. Route 9, Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591 www.hudsonvalley.org/philipsburg/index.htm
Headless Horseman Bridge, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery The precise location of the old, timber bridge where Ichabod was unseated by a pumpkin is lost to time but would probably have been located east of the current Route 9 bridge inside what is now Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. While we are sorry you can't dash across the original, you are welcome to visit the cemetery's own bridge across the Pocantico River. It is on cemetery road Sleepy Hollow Avenue about 0.3 mile inside the cemetery's south gate. The bridge's rough-hewn boards clatter like hoofbeats under the wheels of infrequent automobiles. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, 540 North Broadway, Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591, www.sleepyhollowcemetery.org Headless Horseman Bridge, Route 9 (Broadway)Irving notes in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow that the route of the Albany post road was not always to the west of the church. The present bridge over the Pocantico River was constructed in 1912 by William Rockefeller.
Rockefeller State Park Preserve
Route 117, Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591 914-631-1470, www.friendsrock.org, www.nysparks.state.ny.us GothamLong before it acquired the nickname The Big Apple, Washington Irving cheekily dubbed his hometown Gotham. Gotham was and is a village in Nottinghamshire, England. In the Middle Ages its citizens were the butt of many a joke about their alleged lack of intelligence, although more than a few stories cast the inhabitant's odd behavior as shrewdly calculated to shield the town from the onerous demands of an unreasonable royalty. Far from taking offense at Irving's shot at their legendary high opinion of themselves, subsequent generations of Manhattanites have persistently revived the use of Irving's impudent reference to their possibly feigned lunacy. Some may revel a bit in their ability to pull one over on the unwary, but by and large the inhabitants welcome visitors. Experience the madness for yourself. From either the Tarrytown or Philipse Manor (Sleepy Hollow) stations Manhattan is about a 40 minute train ride. You can drive there, of course, but as the "good citizens of the wonder loving city of Gotham" (Salmagundi No. XIII) will tell you, you would have to be crazy to risk the traffic and byzantine parking regulations. NYC and Company, Convention and Visitors Bureau, www.nycvisit.com Ichabod Crane
The namesake for Irving's hapless schoolmaster is buried in a churchyard in Staten Island. Legend has it that Irving knew Crane from service during the War of 1812. Irving seems to have picked up only the name, not the character, of the Staten Islander. The character may have been based in part upon the career of Revolutionary War veteran Samuel Youngs, a resident of the Tarrytown area. After the revolution, Youngs became a schoolteacher, went on to study law, and was elected to state office—roughly the career path of the fictitious Ichabod Crane. Youngs was originally buried in the churchyard of Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow—the setting for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow—but was transferred to Ossining in 1851 when administrators of the fledgeling Dale Cemetery wanted an notable citizen to grace their new burying ground. Asbury Methodist Cemetery, alternately referred to as Asbury Methodist Episcopal Churchyard, Northfield Methodist Episcopal Churchyard, and New Springville Cemetery. The cemetery surrounds the former Asbury Methodist Church, which is presently SonRise Faith Church. The marble Crane monument is located at the back of the section to the left of the church. The original inscription had been badly vandalized by the end of the 20th Century but has since been restored and reproduction inscriptions installed. 2000 Richmond Avenue (corner of Amsterdam Place), Staten Island, NY.
Hudson Valley Writers' Center
300 Riverside Drive, Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591, 914-332-5953, www.writerscenter.org
Dark Shadows Lyndhurst photo by Rob Yasinsac, inset photo by Jim Logan The headless horseman is not the only frightful phantom to grace the area. Fans of the 1960s television series Dark Shadows will recall that Lyndhurst in Tarrytown served as the Collinwood estate in the feature-length film House of Dark Shadows (1970). Sleepy Hollow Cemetery's receiving vault (inset image) made a cameo in that same film as the Collins family mausoleum. Lyndhurst, one of America's finest Gothic Revival mansions, is within walking distance of Washington Irving's Sunnyside by way of the Old Croton Aqueduct walking trail. One of Lyndhurst’s owners, inventor George Merritt, is interred in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Ferdinand Mangold, Lyndhurst’s landscape architect for Merritt and later Jay Gould, is also in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Lyndhurst, 635 South Broadway, Tarrytown, NY 10591, 914-631-4481, www.lyndhurst.org Old Croton Aqueduct, www.aqueduct.org |
“I
send you herewith a plan of a rural cemetery projected by some of
the worthies of Tarrytown, on the woody hills adjacent to the Sleepy
Hollow Church. I have no pecuniary interest in it, yet I hope it
may succeed, as it will keep that beautiful and umbrageous neighborhood
sacred from the anti-poetical and all-leveling axe. Besides, I trust
that I shall one day lay my bones there.”
“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 name
of Wiley’s Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for
a bridge over this stream . . . It was at this identical spot that
the unfortunate André was captured, and under the covert of those
chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised
him. . . .In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the
brook, [Ichabod] beheld something huge, misshapen and towering.
It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic
monster ready to spring upon the traveler. . . He appeared to be
a horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a black horse of
powerful frame. "
There
is no way around this, so we may as well
be frank: the location of the Van Tassel
homestead in The Legend
of Sleepy Hollow is a
sticky proposition. Van Tassels had long
populated the area by the time Washington
Irving wrote The Legend, so there is reasonable latitude in which
to speculate whom, if any, may have been the models for Baltus Van
Tassel and his coquettish daughter Katrina. Historian Edgar Mayhew
Bacon, in his 1898 book Chronicles
of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow (Bacon was also prescient; it
would be another 98 years before the
village of North Tarrytown changed its name to Sleepy Hollow), attaches
Katrina Van Tassel to the Elizabeth Van Tassel house, a tavern before
and during the Revolutionary War. Bacon notes that Irving was a
frequent visitor at this old house "especially
during the time that his [Irving's] sister
boarded there with the Mott family." In their 1975 History
of the Tarrytowns, Jeff Canning and Wally
Buxton concur, adding that the house was part of the 165 acre John
Van Tassel farm. The former Elizabeth Van Tassel house was located
at what is now the northeast corner of Hamilton Place and North
Broadway in Tarrytown. The Landmark Condominium building presently
on the site was formerly the Frank R. Pierson School (ca. 1897),
which itself was formerly the Washington Irving High School until
the 1920s when the school district build a new Washington Irving
High School at the corner of Franklin Street and South Broadway
in Tarrytown.
"Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles
of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the
church-yard . . . 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."
"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."
If the original route of Ichabod's flight from the headless horseman
is too populated for your taste, step back in time courtesy of the
Rockefeller family. To the east of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, across
the Old Croton Aqueduct, Rockefeller State Park Preserve encompasses
dense forest, rolling pastures, and miles of unpaved carriage roads.
In the gathering gloom of some overcast autumn afternoon, you might
just hear hoofbeats approaching from behind. But don't panic—the
state park allows equestrian access to some trails. If you wish
to make your own horseback ride through Sleepy Hollow, there is
horse trailer parking at the park's main entrance on Route 117.
There is pedestrian access to the park from the Old Croton Aqueduct
and Old Sleepy Hollow Road.
Jump-start your own writing career in the same locale that inspired
Washington Irving. The center offers classes, workshops, and readings
by emerging and established writers in the restored Philipse Manor
train station.Visiting hours: Office hours:  |
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