What is Halloween? A look at Halloween traditions of the past What is Halloween and why the focus on the dead? It’s a boon to necromancers, the day when the dead are most inclined to rise up and join us in the world. Perhaps all it takes is a little pull from this side, and […]
Sleepy Hollow and the Hudson River Valley
Everybody knows the tale, but there's a lot of truth behind the legend. An hour up the Hudson River there's another world, still steeped in early American mythology, and still bearing the marks of this earlier age.
Here's a good place to start your adventure, how Washington Irving came to write the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, in his own words, and how that world has changed, and how it hasn't since then.
Return to Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
Tip your hat to the Imp of Donder-Berg mountain, who still haunts the highlands of the Hudson River
Donderberg Mountain overlooks the Hudson River just a bit above Sleepy Hollow and is in the thick of the Hudson Highlands. The legend of the Imp of Donder-Berg comes to us from the early Dutch settlers of the region, and was made somewhat famous by Washington Irving. According to the story, if the skipper of […]
Hiking Rockefeller State Park Preserve: Looking for Spook Rock, Hulda the witch and the non-headless horseman origins of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow
At last she came to a little house, and an old woman was peeping out of it, but she had such great teeth that the girl was terrified and about to run away, only the old woman called her back. “What are you afraid of, my dear child? Come and live with me, and if you do […]
Daily Life of the American Colonies: The Production of Flax, Linen and My Bloodline in the Colonies
William Atterbury, my namesake was born in England ca 1700-1710, and was a laborer living in London, somewhere in the area of St. James Church and Westminster Abbey. Around the end of 1731, or the beginning of 1732, William went bad, and was nicked stealing five yards of linsey woolsey – a cloth made from […]
Daily Life of the 19th Century: Patent Medications and Homeopathic cures at Washington Irving’s Sunnyside
Top: Medicine box beside Washington Irving’s deathbed When you’re touring a historic home museum, keep an eye out for the little details which speak volumes about the people who lived there. Sunnyside was the home of American author Washington Irving, who wrote most famously, the short stories The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Rip Van […]
Daily Life of the American Colonies: Spoons
We don’t give a lot of thought to our silverware, a part of our daily life our ancestors didn’t take for granted A quick history of spoons and status in colonial era Dutch and English New York, at Philipsburg Manor, Sleepy Hollow, New York
The legend comes to life with Jonathan Kruk in the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow
The Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow has been perched on the hill overlooking the Pocantico River and the Albany Post Road for well over 300 years. As a young man, Washington Irving would often sit and look out the window in the above photo, daydreaming and watching the life of the graveyard just outside […]
Horseman’s Hollow: Sleepy Hollow goes for the jugular
When I was a kid I used to love haunted house attractions. It probably started with a visit to the Haunted Mansion at Disney World, and was fed almost every year by some form of Halloween event all the way through high school. As time went on however, the events became less about instilling those […]
Return to Sleepy Hollow, from an essay by Washington Irving
Sleepy Hollow, a remembrance by Washington Irving is a short article which first appeared in the Knickerbocker Magazine in 1839. Unlike Irving’s more well-known short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Sleepy Hollow is autobiographical in tone. He explored the area as a teenager – a valley of the Pocantico River near Tarrytown, New York, […]
True Confessions: In which the author relates his own encounters in the land of Sleepy Hollow
Above: The shot I was taking in Washington Irving’s Sunnyside when the lady laughed. People are always asking me if I believe these stories, they say “Todd, do you believe these stories?” That’s neither here nor there. But I will offer up a couple of experiences I’ve had, both coming from the Sleepy Hollow area […]
Peter Stuyvesant: A citizen of old New Amsterdam, carrying on nearly 400 years later in New York City
Statue of Peter Stuyvesant, St. Marks-Church-In-The-Bowery. Before there was New York, there was New Amsterdam. Founded by the Dutch in 1614, New Amsterdam occupied much of the tip of lower Manhattan, with today’s Wall Street taking its name from the outer walls of the settlement. New Amsterdam was a company town, ran by the Dutch […]
Philipsburg Manor: Historic Attraction in Historic Hudson Valley’s Sleepy Hollow
Philsburg Manor, a historic attraction In Sleepy Hollow, in the heart of the historic Hudson River valley, by history/travel photographer and writer Todd Atteberry for the History Trekker.
