• This is a trade publication ad for the Holt Egg Beater and Cream Whip produced by the Holt-Lyon Company of Tarrytown, New York.
    Local History & Interest,  Vanished Sleepy Hollow

    Holt-Lyon Company

    Over the course of its existence, the Holt-Lyon Company manufactured a variety of hand-powered kitchen appliances like cream whips and egg beaters, bread slicers, and mayonnaise mixers. Holt-Lyon was incorporated around the year 1900 for capital of $20,000 (about $700,000 in 2023 dollars). The business was the joining of forces by Nelson Lyon, who had manufactured egg beaters near Albany, New York, with Thomas Holt, who held patents for improved egg beater designs. The partners leased a factory on the Tarrytown, New York waterfront for their steam-powered equipment. Hand-powered egg beaters and similar hand-held mixers first appeared in US patents filed in the 1850s. Their innovative utility made them household…

  • Color post card of Old Dutch Church, Sleepy Hollow. Card by Tarrytown Post Card Company.
    Places & Landmarks,  Post Cards

    Tarrytown Post Card Company

    Unlike Russell & Lawrie in Tarrytown and Edward Farrington in North Tarrytown (today’s Sleepy Hollow), we know very little about the Tarrytown Post Card Company. It was apparently a single person operation by John D. Hazen, the music director at Hackley School and Miss Mason’s School “The Castle”. Hazen also appears to have been a local scoutmaster. View our full collection of cards at our Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown Post Card Gallery. Public Library, Tarrytown, N.Y. This half tone card has no numbering. Tarrytown Post Card Company. numbered P-60879. “Lyndhurst,” Residence of Mr. and Mrs. Finley J. Shepard, Tarrytown, N.Y. Helen Miller Gould Shepard (1868-1938) was an American philanthropist and daughter…

  • Places & Landmarks,  Post Cards

    Russell & Lawrie Post Cards

    Founded by Frederick A. Russell and James T. Lawrie, the Russell & Lawrie drugstore originally occupied the first floor of the Washington Building at Main Street and Broadway in Tarrytown, a Tudor-style building that in 1894 replaced the pre-Revolutionary Edward Covenhoven Inn. The drugstore moved a couple blocks up Broadway after a fire swept the building in 1965. Like their crosstown rival, Farrington’s Drug Store, Russell & Lawrie published a series of souvenir postcards, some of which we collect here. They offer a glimpse of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow landmarks frozen at particular points in time. View our full collection of cards at our Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown Post Card Gallery.…

  • Photo post card Rockwood Hall, Home of William Rockefeller.
    Places & Landmarks,  Post Cards

    Hettling Post Cards

    Unlike Russell & Lawrie in Tarrytown and Edward Farrington in North Tarrytown (today’s Sleepy Hollow), we don’t know much about the E. Hettling operation. View our full collection of cards at our Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown Post Card Gallery. Rockwood Hall, Home of William Rockefeller. E. Hettling, publisher. The Albertype Co., Brooklyn, N.Y. Headless Horseman Bridge, Tarytown, N.Y. A sketch of the bridge published by E. Hettling, Tarrytown. New Bridge and Old Dutch Church, Tarrytown, N.Y. published by E. Hettling, Tarrytown. This is a tinted version of a photo of the Sleepy Hollow bridge also used by Barton & Spooner of Cornwall-on-Hudson.

  • Edward Farrington postcard numbered 404,416 Residence of J.D. Rockefeller, Pocantico Hills, N.Y., showing Sunken Garden and Japanese Tea House.
    Places & Landmarks,  Post Cards

    Farrington Post Cards

    Like his rivals at Russell & Lawrie in Tarrytown, drugstore owner Edward Farrington had a line of souvenirs. Farrington’s Drug Store was located on the corner of Beekman Avenue and Washington Street in North Tarrytown. Farrington (or his printer) employed a numbering system for his images, typically a six-digit code on the image side of the card. In the mid-2000s former Rockefeller archivist Lucas Buresch cataloged Farrington’s “Lost Postcards of the Rockefeller Estate” with notes on each. View our full collection of cards at our Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown Post Card Gallery. Edward Farrington post card numbered 404,418 Orangerie, Estate of J. D. Rockefeller, Pocantico Hills, Tarrytown, N.Y. Winter Quarters for…

  • A postcard of the Hotel Florence, Tarrytown, New York, with several early 20th century cars park out front.
    Post Cards,  Vanished Sleepy Hollow

    The Florence Inn

    From 1819 to 1964 the northwest corner of the intersection of South Broadway (Route 9) and Franklin Street was occupied by a rambling old house that for much of its existence was a popular inn. Known first as the Franklin House and later as the Vincent House, Florence Inn, and Hotel Florence, it served locals and travelers along the Albany Post Road. In their History of the Tarrytowns, local historians Jeff Canning and Wally Buxton record a parade of notable visitors to the Florence: President Martin Van Buren often stopped while in transit from his home in upstate Kinderhook, NY to Washington, DC; Woodrow Wilson lodged there while giving a series…

  • A color drawing of an American shad (Alosa sapidissima) by Duane Raver commissioned by the Fish and Wildlife Service.
    Local History & Interest,  Van Tassel Feast

    Shad, the Most Delicious Fish

    “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 . . . Such heaped-up platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the doughty dough-nut, the tenderer oly koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; 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…

  • Three ghosts of Raven Rock reportedly haunt this lonely and remote area of Rockefeller State Park.
    Ghosts & Spooks

    Beware The Ghosts of Raven Rock

    “Nowhere in this part of the country are the ravens to be found, though it is thought that they may have been plentiful a century or more ago. The crows, who are known to be inveterate neighbors of their larger cousins, perhaps drove them out. Upon their exodus these birds of ill omen left their names in more than one lonely spot, to couple with dark associations. Raven Rock is a detached portion of the steep, rocky, eastern side of Buttermilk Hill, which a deep fissure has long separated from the mass, and the fragment, becoming independent territory, set up a mythology of its own. Not content with one legend,…

  • Folklore,  Ghosts & Spooks

    The Spook Rock

    “In the days before the railroad was built, the population of Tarrytown was small, and the majority of the inhabitants were farmers; good, plain, practical people, not given to romancing and the inveterate foes of novelty. Some elderly folk, whose memories take them back to the thirties, remember the story of the Spook Rock as it was transmitted to them from their parents and grandparents, which should satisfy any sceptic of its genuine antiquity. Not far from the cottage of Hulda, the witch, it stood; but it was an ancient landmark before Sleepy Hollow mothers ever used Hulda’s name to frighten their babies into obedience.” –Chronicles of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow,…

  • Ghosts & Spooks,  Folklore,  Vanished Sleepy Hollow

    Carl’s Mill

    “His greatest treasure of historic lore, however, was discovered in an old goblin-looking mill, situated among rocks and water-falls, with clanking wheels, and rushing streams, and all kinds of uncouth noises. A horse-shoe, nailed to the door to keep off witches and evil spirits, showed that this mill was subject to the awful visitations. As we approached it, 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 looked like the very hobgoblin of the place. The illustrious Diedrich fixed upon him, at once, as the very one to give him that invaluable kind of information,…