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Sunnyside: Mr. Irving Builds his Dream House
“I am more and more in the notion of having that little cottage below Oscar’s house, and wish you to tell him to endeavor to get it for me. I am willing to pay a little unreasonably for it, and should like to have it in time to make any alterations that may be advisable, as early as possible in the spring.” The Life and Letters of Washington Irving, Vol. 3, pg. 30. Dutch immigrant Wolfert Acker lived in a modest farmhouse that was part of the many tenant properties on the Philipse Manor. It was situated on the Hudson River in a small hollow in the land on a…
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Tragedy at the Boutonville Oak
Let’s hike in the woods of the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation to the Boutonville Oak. We can thread along roads and trails, traverse hollows, and make our way along densely wooded hillsides. It is a nature preserve of nearly 4,400 acres and one of Sleepy Hollow Country’s largest parks. It has a deep and storied history and the many points of interest can lead from one legend to the next. History of the Boutonville Oak Embedded on the far eastern border though, towers an ancient and gnarled oak tree. Known locally as the Boutonville Oak, for its proximity to the hamlet of Boutonville, this sentinel in the landscape took root…
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The Reckoning of the Piermont Ghost
“If ghosts were as plentiful in fact as they are in newspaper columns white-robed shapes and people who can be seen through would be almost as numerous as stray cats. It is astonishing what a quantity of ghost stories are in circulation among the journals of the country.” -White Plains Eastern State Journal, April 23, 1887 Five miles from Sleepy Hollow as the raven flies, or ten by highway, lies a stretch of road where the Piermont ghost had the time of its afterlife in March of 1887, terrorizing residents of the villages of Sparkill and Piermont. Unlike the shy specters hiding in attics, this ghost was the social butterfly…
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The Ghost of Grand View
“It was not long after that when towels were mysteriously removed from the bathroom and left in fantastic shapes in various parts of the house. Whenever all the occupants left the house, things were sure to be turned topsyturvy. Clocks stopped, trunks were unlocked, furniture displaced, but there was never any evidence that these things had been done for the purpose of plunder.” The New York Herald, August 27th, 1908. The Ghost of Grand View Arrives Something strange was happening in the Blauvelt house in the summer of 1908. It began when Mrs. Blauvelt came home to find what appeared to her to be an elderly man sitting on her…
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Speed, Glory, and Tragedy: Sleepy Hollow’s Lost Bobsled Champions
While the origins of bobsledding are often contested between the Swiss Alps and upstate New York’s Adirondack mountains, compelling evidence points to the Hudson Valley as the sport’s birthplace. In Albany’s bustling lumber district along the Hudson River, rough-hewn lumberjacks transformed working sleds into racing machines during the 1880s. Newspaper reports confirm Albany held organized bobsled races at its winter carnival as early as 1885, predating Swiss competitions by two years. An 1882 exam for Albany eighth-graders even asked students to write about bobsledding, suggesting the sport was already part of local culture. The sport’s innovation was elegantly simple: some daredevil, understanding that more weight equaled more speed, linked two…
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Ghoulish Jokester Robs a Grave
“Echoes of Ichabod Crane’s ghost stories in the Tarrytown cemetery led to the discovery early today that some one had removed a skull from a pauper grave and placed it on top of a tombstone in the conventionally gruesome manner.” -The Washington Times, May 25, 1929 One night in May 1929 a person passing through the hamlet of East View received quite a jolt at the sight of a human skull atop a tombstone in the county poorhouse cemetery. Not bothering to give his name, the individual reported to Town of Greenburgh police that a ghost was roaming the cemetery. Sergeant Dunkel investigated and found the skull placed on top…
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The Man, The Myth, The Legend: Washington Irving. Part 1: A Venturesome Urchin!
The year was 1783. The day was April 3rd. The place was 131 William Street, Manhattan, New York. It was a surreal week for those residing in old Gotham. After eight arduous years of occupation in the city, the British had called a ceasefire, effectively ending the American Revolution. We were no longer the colonies, but the United States. A new republic! There was a collective sigh of relief from the former colonists. William Irving, Sr. was a Scottish merchant and former petty officer of the British Navy, and his Cornish wife, Sarah Sanders were two of those who were consoled by the end of the hostilities. Right after their…
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Patriot’s Park
Located on the cusp of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow lies a rolling green space known today as Patriot’s Park. Named for being the famous location of the capture of John André by local patriot militiamen in 1780, the park boasts the capture monument and memorial, but also features other last vestiges of other pieces of local history and folklore. The earliest known historical act of significance where Patriot’s Park is located today is the capture of British Officer, John André as he was attempting to escape from behind enemy lines after helping infamous traitor Benedict Arnold. A large poplar tree supposedly marked the capture site, which was located about 200…
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Hulda the Witch of Sleepy Hollow
“. . . in the days of our nation’s birth-throes he was a brave man who passed the cottage of the witch, even in the daytime. A hundred years ago the people took witches seriously.” –Chronicles of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow Hulda, the witch of Sleepy Hollow, has pulled off quite the magical feat: transforming from a seven-paragraph footnote in an 1897 book into a full-fledged local legend with her own headstone at the Old Dutch Church. Originally, Hulda’s tale was a mere seven-paragraph whisper in Edgar Mayhew Bacon’s 1897 book, Chronicles of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, nestled comfortably in the “Myths and Legends” section. Bacon suggests that perhaps, long…
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Haunted Taverns of Sleepy Hollow Country
For centuries, taverns have been the beating heart of Hudson Valley life—places where Revolutionary War soldiers planned midnight raids, where railroad workers cashed Friday paychecks, where generations of locals celebrated, commiserated, and occasionally, refused to leave. Even in death. While Sleepy Hollow’s Headless Horseman may be the region’s most famous phantom, preferring his solitary rides along dark country roads, there are at least three establishments where the spirits are considerably more sociable. Pull up a barstool and let us introduce you to the residents who checked in permanently. “The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is…
