• 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,…

  • A photo of Bannerman Island and Castle in the Hudson River, off Beacon, New York.
    Local History & Interest

    Bannerman Castle 

    “The sloop continued labouring and rocking, as if she would have rolled her mast overboard. She seemed in continual danger either of upsetting or of running on shore. In this way she drove quite through the highlands, until she had passed Pollopol’s Island, where, it is said, the jurisdiction of the Dunderberg potentate ceases.” -The Storm-Ship, by Washington Irving Bannerman Castle, one of the Hudson Valley’s most prominent ruins, sits like a sentinel at the North Gate to the Hudson Highlands. In Washington Irving’s short story “The Storm-Ship”, this small island marks the northern end of the domain of The Heer of Dunderberg, a Dutch goblin king who vexed many a sailing…

  • An historic postcard of Captain Kidd's Rock on the shore of the Hudson River in Kingsland Point Park, Sleepy Hollow, New York.
    Pirates of the Hudson,  Places & Landmarks

    Captain Kidd’s Rock

    “This has long been the name of a rock that is part of the river-wall on the outer side of Kingsland’s point. There is a summer-house built over the rock and if there were ever golden riches beneath it, or if there are treasures hidden there still, it is not (fortunately) the duty of a sober historian to tell.” –Chronicles of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, by Edgar Mayhew Bacon Kingsland Point, today a waterfront park in Sleepy Hollow, was once part of an estate owned by Ambrose Kingsland, a wealthy whale oil merchant who served one term as mayor of New York City. Kingsland also owned land nearby in Tarrytown that…