American Gothic: a visit to Sleepy Hollow, New York

In 'The legend of Sleepy Hollow', Washington Irving's classic bit of American folklore (published in 1820), a schoolteacher named Ichabod Crane sits around with the elderly Dutch matriarchs of a sleepy hamlet situated along the Hudson River (aptly named Sleepy Hollow), frightening each other with tales of ghosts and witchcraft. One of the most popular stories the citizens of Sleepy Hollow tell is about the Hessian whose ghost rides through the village in search of his head. This "Headless Horseman" is the spirit of a German mercenary who lost his noggin to a cannonball during the Revolutionary War, and won't rest until he finds it. The climax of Irving's tale is the Headless Horseman's terrifying flight through the woods on the heels of Ichabod Crane.

Irving's tale is a great nugget of history from a time when "Van Tassels" and "DeVries", left over from the original Dutch settlement of New York, still occupied the region, and while today's Sleepy Hollow is a considerably different place (way less creepy and isolated, for one thing), there are traces of the era in which Irving wrote. You can still visit the Old Dutch Church, built in 1685 (ancient, by American standards), and its churchyard, where Irving is buried. You can also visit the estate on which the builder of the Old Dutch Church, Frederick Philipse, lived, now open to the public for self-guided tours. We didn't have the luck to travel to Sleepy Hollow at Halloween, but rather in late spring; as evidenced by our pictures, it was pretty dreary and even a little spooky--perfect timing.

Sleepy Hollow is easily accessible from New York City by train or, for a truly frightening experience, you can get there by way of the Bronx highway, like we did. If a trip there isn't in the cards, though, there are a couple of film versions worth checking out. As a kid, my favorite Halloween cartoon (besides, of course, 'It's the great pumpkin, Charlie Brown'), was Disney's 'The legend of Sleepy Hollow'. Watching it for the first time in a long time a few years back though, I found it kind of...odd. I don't know if it was the Bing Crosby narration, or the meandering pace, but it didn't have quite the same magic. It is, however, pretty true to the story, unlike Tim Burton's version, an occasionally gruesome black comedy set among foggy, ominous woods, and loaded with great actors.