SLEEPY HOLLOW
Location: Sleepy Hollow is a small Dutch community located at North Tarrytown, New York and crossed by the Pocantico River in Westchester County.
Description of Place: Sleepy Hollow is a beautiful idyllic valley north of New York City. Very little has changed in the area over two hundred years. Many of the structures remain the same as they stood in the Eighteenth Century. The whole area is roughly bordered by the Hudson River to the west, Highway 100 running northeast north Tarrytown to the south. Washington Irving is buried in the local cemetery.
Ghostly Manifestations: The Headless Horseman is by far the most famous
paranormal figure from American literature, but few realize that when
Washington Irving wrote his famous short story that he was actually weaving a
piece of fiction around an actual ghost story that really existed. The
unearthly and spectral vision of a headless horseman has been seen charging
along the river going back to the Eighteenth Century. His exact description has
varied over the years from a black horseman waving a rapier atop a dark steed,
to a headless skeleton on horseback and to a dark horseman with a jack
o-lantern as a head.
While there is no clear evidence that figures
named Ichabod Crane, Brom Bones or Katrina Van Tassel ever existed, there is an
affluent family named Crane whose estate is situated north of Sleepy Hollow on
the way toward Ossining and points north. They are not descendants of any
spindly and skinny schoolmasters who were driven out of town, but rather the
relatives of a New York constable named Isaac Crane who came to the area to
investigate a series of forgotten grisly murders in the aftermath of the age of
witch trials. It is believed Irving modeled this man into his Ichabod Crane.
Rather than being chased from town, he married into a wealthy family of
landowners and stayed in the area.
Experiences concerning the horseman have been
limited nearly entirely to the winter months when the fog rolls in land off the
river. People in their homes have heard the sound of distant hoof beats
charging down the main lane. No one has been reported as encountering and
losing their head has ever been reported, but a few have said they have seen
the horseman moving through the fog. During a Halloween party in 1976 given by
heiress Beth Crane, as many as twenty people said they saw the headless
horseman ride around the perimeter of the estate while others claimed to have
seen him actually come to the house and stand outside a window. A Great Dane
belonging to one of the guests actually bolted from the room sensing something
paranormal about the decapitated visitor.
A miniscule number of drivers along Highway
100 have taken the time to report seeing the horseman just standing by the
road, but the police have frequently discovered stuffed dummies and headless
manikins made up to terrify drivers into causing accidents. This is not to
suggest all the horseman’s appearances are fake. On three occasions, the
horseman has walked out into traffic near the Pocantico River Bridge and was
deliberately hit. A bartender running a pub down the road has heard several
drivers come in to regain their wits after thinking they have hit and killed a
living person.
As recent as 2004, the horseman has been seen
galloping along the highway near the old cemetery. Described as a horseman with
a pumpkin for a head, his specter was reportedly spurred into new activity by
the arrival of Ian Cranston, one of the witnesses, who also claimed to be a
descendant of the historical Ichabod (nee Isaac) Crane.
When he is not acting as a traffic hazard, the phantom has been seen lurking through the cemetery at dusk and at dawn when it is not quite as bright. In recent years, a group of people on a historical tour noticed the headless figure moving through the trees around them and commended their guide for heightening their experience with someone posing as the horseman. Their guide merely chuckled nervously along with them because he had no idea who the figure was or wasn’t.
History: Sleepy Hollow predates 1697 as a community. The site of numerous
military skirmishes, most of them connected to the Revolutionary War, the small
farming and historical community is still very nearly the same as it was when
Washington Irving first documented the local ghost story.
While it is believed that Crane based his story on actual events, it has recently come to light that the Ichabod Crane he wrote about could not have been based on Isaac Crane. Beth Crane’s great-great-grandfather had actually arrived in the community in 1876; far too recent for Irving’s story. While the family name might have been a coincidence, the idea remains that the family is descended from the character in the short story.
Identity of Ghosts: The story of the Headless Horseman
During the Revolutionary War, the British
Army recruited many Hessian soldiers from Germany to storm the land and lay
waste to the Colonist forces ahead of them. The Hessians were known to be brave
bloodthirsty fighting mercenaries trained specifically for war. One of the most
bloodthirsty among them lost his head by a cannon blast and died where he fell.
His ghost reportedly comes back looking for his head and to take back as many
modern colonists as he can. Comments: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1980), Sleepy Hollow (1999), The Hollow
(2004) and Scooby Doo, Where are You (Episode: The Headless Horseman of
Halloween) Hauntings patterned upon the actual Sleepy Hollow and upon other
headless phantom cases.