The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Most Americans know the famous story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman.  The short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" was actually written by Washington Irving, whom lived and wrote about Sleepy Hollow, New York.  In Irving's story, the schoolmaster Crane vies for the attentions of Katrina van Tassel with Abraham "Brom Bones" van Brunt.  There are many ghosts known to Sleepy Hollow, most notably the Headless Horseman - a Hessian Soldier decapitated during the Revolutionary War who haunts travelers in search of a new head.

Sleepy Hollow is an area in the settlement of Tarrytown and happens to be right over THE BRIDGE (the Tappan Zee, not the one in the story :} ) from us.  Tarrytown has a number of events in the month of October in celebration of Halloween.  We went to three of them on Saturday night, October 8th.  The first is a storytelling of "The Legend" in the Old Dutch Church, which is the church by the burial ground where Crane is attacked by the Headless Horseman and also the cemetery where Washington Irving is buried.  This is told by local storyteller Jonathan Kruk - and was our favorite event of the weekend.  We'd really recommend, if you're ever around New York in the month before Halloween - this is something to do.  Kruk is dressed up in New England 18th century attire, and he really gets into the spirit of the story and halloween.  It's a great thing to do when the leaves are changing and it's Halloween season.  Here's the link to the website.

Before we went to the Old Dutch Church for the storytelling, we had a alittle bit of time so we took a stroll thru the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.  Irving is buried there, but he is not the only famous person there.  Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, oil baron William Rockefeller (brother of John D.) and auto Walter Chrysler (founder of Chrysler Corp.) are all buried in the cemetery.

After the story telling, we walked across the street to Phillipsburg Manor which is transformed into a haunted house for halloween called the Horseman's Hollow.  Katie is a wimp when it comes to scary stuff, so she opted to stay out by the gift shop and Charlie went in by himself.  Charlie was impressed, but things like that just aren't quite that scary when you're 31 years old.

Next stop was dinner and we found this cute little restaurant with great views of the Hudson and the Tappan Zee Bridge appropriately called Bridge View Tavern in Tarrytown.  Great hamburgers and a Captain Lawrence Pumpkin Ale to tide us over before the last Halloween event!

Our last stop was The Great Jack-O-Lantern Blaze a few miles up the road from Tarrytown, at Van Cortlandt Manor.  Thousands (seriously - thousands) of pumpkins carved into amazing displays.  There were all different sorts of themes - pumpkins carved into a large snakes, dinosaurs, pirates and undersea aquarium of pumpkins.  A really cool experience that definitely put us in Halloween spirit.

(this one was Katie's favorite)