NEW YORK CITY (SBG) — The impenetrable fog that had drowsily hovered just inches above the surface of New York's Hudson River all morning had dissipated by the time I visited the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, but the afternoon sky was still a dreary shade of gray that shrouded the burial ground in an appropriate state of pensiveness.
As winding paths led me around the cemetery in often-unintentional circles, it was impossible to ignore the charming backdrop of leaves in various stages of their journey to magnificent shades of red, orange, and yellow; or the miniature warblers on an expedition of their own, flitting from one branch to another to fuel up for the following leg of their migration to warmer points south.
Still, the bleak October clouds created a mood such that any hint of movement might not have been a falling leaf or a bird at all — but a spirit awoken by the disturbance of visitors’ footsteps overhead. The notion that I was likely in the presence of ghosts was only helped along by the abundance of myths and legends concerning the cemetery and the surrounding areas.
It was a similar sensation, I imagined, to the one that Washington Irving described in his famed story of a similar setting, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” In a way, my own paranoia paralleled that of poor Ichabod Crane on his fateful midnight journey home from an evening of festivities, ghost stories, and heartbreak. I had no trouble, then, understanding the circumstances that caused him to mistake a patch of white wood for a hanging specter and that prompted him to urge his old, borrowed horse to travel faster through the darkness in pursuit of safety.
Check out our photo tour of Sleepy Hollow in our gallery above or by clicking here.
Of course, Crane’s trepidation was far more justified than my own. While I boarded a Metro-North train to New York City later that evening, just as intended, and made it back to my apartment without incident, Irving’s protagonist vanished on his journey home, never to be seen again.
A search for the lanky schoolteacher turned up only a trampled saddle, the hat he had been wearing the night prior, and a fractured pumpkin, the latter serving as a clue that Crane’s demise may have come at the hands of the area’s most notorious phantom, the Headless Horseman.
In the real-life town of Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., references to the Headless Horseman are plentiful.
During my visit, I watched a mother visiting the cemetery delight in showing her young child a sign describing how the Headless Horseman tethers his horse nightly in the churchyard of the Old Dutch Church. Directly south of the burying ground, another sign marks the Headless Horseman Bridge, the presumed location of the bridge that became a beacon of hope for Crane during the chase and where he ultimately met his fate, though the exact positioning of where it once stood has been subject to much debate.
Head across the heavily trafficked bridge that has since replaced the simple wooden one from Irving’s story, and you’ll be greeted by an 18-foot steel sculpture of the Headless Horseman hot on Crane’s trail. A barbershop in town has set up its own sidewalk statue of the climatic moment for the Halloween season, and you can pick up merchandise featuring illustrations of that same scene at souvenir shops and gas stations. One pub serves a 10-ounce “Horseman” burger served with a side of homemade chili; another offers “Ichabod Cod.”
Even outside of Sleepy Hollow, businesses across the county of Westchester have capitalized on the legend. Yonkers Brewing Company in nearby Yonkers, for instance, sells a can of pumpkin ale with the Headless Horseman galloping across the label.
There’s something about a town called Sleepy Hollow that practically demands a ghost or two to take up residence there. It almost sounds fictitious, as if invented solely to be the setting of a ghost story, and you wouldn't be judged for the assumption that Irving made it up himself. Truly, there is no other name that would be quite so fitting for the land that the author described as enveloped by “a drowsy, dreamy influence” that seemed to encourage for its occupants a steadfast belief in the supernatural.
In reality, the roots of the village’s name actually predate "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by over 150 years.
The land on which Sleepy Hollow now stands once belonged to the Weckquaesgeek Native Americans but began to attract Dutch colonists during the 17th century following Henry Hudson's expedition on behalf of the Dutch East India Company along the river now named for him.
One of those colonists, a lawyer by the name of Adriaen van der Donck, was especially drawn to exploring the unfamiliar territory and learning as much as possible about the land and its inhabitants. In one of van der Donck's published works from 1655, he referred to the Pocantico River as "Slapershaven," a Dutch name that translated to "Sleepers' Haven" and referenced a safe place to dock a ship overnight. It was later anglicized to "Sleepy Hollow."
In 1680, Frederick Philipse, a Dutch immigrant who originally came to New Netherland as a carpenter for the Dutch West India Company, began to acquire large amounts of land from both the Weckquaesgeek tribe and van der Donck's heirs, including the entirety of modern-day Sleepy Hollow in his Pocantico Purchase.
For the next century, much of the area’s development was a result of the slave labor on which Philipse and his descendants relied. Individuals forced into a life of slavery operated the mill, piloted boats from Philipsburg Manor to New York City, and built the Old Dutch Church.
During the Revolutionary War, the third and final lord of Philipsburg Manor, Frederick Philipse III, remained allegiant to the British monarchy. As a result, the manor was confiscated in 1779.
Just shy of a decade later, a young Washington Irving became acquainted with the town of Sleepy Hollow.
The year was 1798, and a yellow fever outbreak was plaguing New York City. Irving's family sent the teenager to visit a friend in Tarrytown, believing that the purer air north of their Manhattan home would keep him healthy during the epidemic. In Tarrytown and the neighboring Sleepy Hollow, Irving first heard some of the mystical and haunting folklore that is said to have influenced his writing later in life.
In the same way that Irving drew inspiration from the slumberous countryside of Sleepy Hollow for his legend’s sinister setting, the idea for a headless horseman likely grew out of several different sources beyond the author’s own imagination.
The earliest fictional accounts of haunted horsemen carrying their own severed heads date back to the Middle Ages, but many claim Irving’s character is based on an actual Hessian artilleryman who lost his head in the Battle of White Plains during the Revolutionary War. Others point to Irving’s relationship with Sir Walter Scott, a Scottish writer and historian who introduced Irving to German fairy tales. Indeed, one of Scott’s works, “The Chase,” is a translation of a German ballad that describes a huntsman motivated by a mysterious evil force.
Through the predominance of references to Irving’s legend, the Headless Horseman can be assumed to be Sleepy Hollow’s favorite spectral figure, but Westchester County is a haven for those who are drawn to tales of the paranormal in the same way that Ichabod Crane enthusiastically latched onto the grim stories of ghosts and goblins that pervaded his village.
Several of the town’s spirits are said to have found a home in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, not far from where the Headless Horseman tethers his beastly black horse.
Although my guide for the cemetery’s evening lantern tour was quick to dispel the notion that the grounds were haunted by the Headless Horseman or any other ghostly beings, paranormal investigators have asserted that spirits there have revealed their presence via recordings known as electronic voice phenomena.
An investigator for New Jersey Paranormal Research, for example, wrote about picking up the faint sound of musket gunfire or a drum line from a section of the cemetery in which many soldiers who died in the Revolutionary War are buried. And sometimes, the ghosts make themselves visible. Investigator Paul Roberts of Halo Paranormal Investigations spoke to two different women who both described seeing a large shadowy entity with the face of a raccoon.
There are also multiple accounts of a potentially haunted statue in the cemetery, a bronze woman who gazes at the tomb of a Civil War general and has been heard crying. Some brave enough to approach the statue have described feeling real tears beneath her eyes. Others have experienced bouts of bad luck after touching the statue’s face in an irreverent way.
Bordering the northeastern edge of the cemetery is Rockefeller State Park Preserve. The tour guide told our group that any unexplained noises were more likely to come from the state park than from the cemetery, and I waited for him to follow up with the details of a moonlit ghost sighting or an unexplained disappearance in the forest just beyond the headstones. After all, several trails in the park have foreboding names like “Witch’s Spring” and “Spook Rock,” often in reference to ancient lore and mysterious occurrences.
Instead, he blamed coyotes. But given what I had read about Rockefeller State Park Preserve, I personally found coyotes to be a far less exciting explanation for the sounds.
Along the Witch’s Spring Trail, you’ll find an unusual setup. Dozens of logs have been carved into the shape of seats and positioned to face a makeshift structure built out of sticks.
The display is a recreation of a hut believed to have stood in that very spot several centuries ago, the home of a supposed witch named Mother Hulda. When the older woman of an unknown background first arrived in Sleepy Hollow, the Dutch villagers shunned the foreigner publicly but discreetly accepted her medicinal remedies.
It was only when Hulda sacrificed herself for the good of the town in a British raid during the Revolutionary War that the townspeople realized the respect that their sharpshooting guardian angel and healer deserved. And so, they carried her body to the Old Dutch Church and laid her to rest in an unmarked grave by the church’s north wall.
Hulda’s memory is further preserved in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” as some interpretations understand Irving’s mention of a “High German doctor” to be about the benevolent but misunderstood herbalist.
Steps away from Hulda’s hut is Spook Rock, a distinctive boulder that may have once served as a council meeting spot for the Weckquaesgeek people. One story claims that it was here that Sleepy Hollow fell under its haze of permanent somnolence when the Weckquaesgeek tribe cursed another that they believed to be disrespecting their land. The curse turned the other tribe members’ bones into stone, such that when the Dutch settled on the land, they dug up the cursed stones and inflicted themselves with a lighter dose of the same sleepy spell.
According to legend, Spook Rock was also the location of a tragic romance between a young Native American man and a beautiful sky maiden, the relationship’s sorrowful end brought about by the woman’s misconception that she traveled back to her sisters in the stars for only one evening. In reality, she had been missing for a number of years and returned to find nothing left of the life she had created on Earth.
Raven Rock is another geological landmark in Rockefeller State Park Preserve, notable for its brief cameo in Irving’s iconic legend. At the Van Tassels’ party prior to Crane’s disappearance, a mention is made of “the woman in white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow.” It’s been suggested that the spot is haunted by two additional ghosts, a colonial girl who leaped from the rock to avoid the advances of an unwanted suitor and a Native American woman driven to death by a jealous lover.
In the same way that unexplained noises in the cemetery were attributed to the state park’s wildlife population, an attempt was made at the Armour-Stiner Octagon House to blame carbon monoxide from gas lighting for any apparitions. But such an explanation fails to acknowledge the strange happenings that have been observed in the modern-day.
The unusually shaped house, built in the mid-19th century, is the only known octagonal residence with a full dome. It’s situated on a bluff above the Hudson River in Irvington, N.Y.
Given that the town of Irvington is named in honor of Washington Irving and located only a short drive south of Sleepy Hollow, hauntings there come as no surprise. And a home as architecturally stunning as the Armour-Stiner House certainly seems like prime real estate for anyone, alive or dead.
But the ghost said to haunt the house didn’t scope out the Victorian-style cottage when it was rented through Sotheby’s for $40,000 a month in 2017. The white lady, of no relation to the woman in white who resides at Raven Rock, has a close connection to the property, having spent a summer at the house and ultimately meeting her untimely demise in a steamboat accident while eloping with a neighbor’s son.
Following the accident, the girl's spirit first made her appearance known to her unsuspecting mother, who was waiting angrily in the driveway for her daughter’s tardy return.
Since then, she has continued to show up from time to time. Carl Carmer, a popular American author who occupied the house from 1940 until his death in 1976, described seeing the woman floating down the driveway late at night.
The ghost has also been credited with saving the life of a carpenter who forgot to clip in his rope while replacing the dome’s slate. And my tour guides described a much more recent incident of candlesticks being knocked to the ground in what is said to be the ghost’s favorite room on the building’s third floor. They theorized that the spirit was excited about the kickoff of the October “Myths and Mysteries” series, which focuses far more on her existence than do the typical tours.
Neither Joseph Pell Lombardi, the renowned preservation architect who took on the daunting challenge of restoring the Armour-Stiner House in 1978, nor his son, Michael, believes very strongly in ghosts, but when it comes to explaining some of the strange incidents that they’ve both personally experienced, logic escapes them.
While working in one of the bedrooms, Joseph stepped away from a painted-shut window to grab his toolbox and returned to find it wide open. Michael, too, had a story involving tools, in which a tape measure inexplicably flew out of his bag and landed at the top of the staircase on the third floor. He also still ruminates on the footsteps that he heard while biking around the house’s wrap-around veranda as a child, the source of which remains a mystery to this day.
Sometimes, it’s just a feeling.
I’ve had so many general experiences, usually when I’m maybe least expecting something, or I don’t know. I don’t know how to describe it,” said Michael, who currently lives in the property's carriage house with his wife, Jessica, and their son. “Out of the corner of my eye, I will see a glimpse in another room or something passing. I’ll be doing something, and I’ll take pause.And once, a tour had to be cut short when Michael described to the group that the white lady often comes in the form of the scent of lilac, only for a few of the visitors to immediately notice a floral smell. “It was kind of a boisterous group, and everybody got quiet. It was very awkward. The tour was over, and they all left,” Michael said.
Ghosts aside, those looking to see a marvel of preservation architecture will find plenty of interest in touring the Lombardis’ eight-sided labor of love. Then, the historic house tour can continue nearby with Sunnyside, the picturesque estate in which Washington Irving resided for the final years of his life.
Irving died in 1859 of a heart attack in his Sunnyside bedroom at the age of 76, and several witnesses have seen his ghost wandering throughout the estate, while female visitors have described being pinched by an invisible entity suspected to be Irving.
But some say that the author instead haunts Colonnade Row, a once-luxurious row of Greek rival dwellings in Manhattan where he lived during the height of its splendor, and sightings have also been reported directly across the street at the former Astor Library. Others have claimed to see Irving’s apparition near his grave in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
The carefully restored historic site also receives some housekeeping help from the ghosts of Irving’s nieces, who have been known to tidy up the estate after the tour guides have gone home for the night.
Occasionally, there are reports of unexplained laughter, girlish in tone, potentially belonging to one of those nieces, although at least one psychic medium has suggested that the ghost of Matilda Hoffman, Irving’s fiancee who died of tuberculosis long before the author purchased Sunnyside, strolls the grounds in hopes of reuniting with her love.
Across Route 9 and perched atop a hill, another 19th-century estate has since been transformed into a hotel, balancing contemporary luxury with the historic charm of the mansion in its heyday as a private residence.
Tarrytown House Estate spans 26 acres and consists of several different buildings, but the most unique lodging experience, and perhaps the most haunted, can be found within the property’s oldest structure. Built in 1840 and once known as “Uplands,” King Mansion was renamed for Thomas M. King, the vice president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the estate’s owner in the early 20th century. It now houses 10 Georgian-style suites on the second floor, where guests may encounter the ghostly form of Sybil Harris King, a former lady of the house who passed away in what has become Room 293.
On the ground level of King Mansion is Goosefeather, a modern ode to traditional Cantonese food helmed by Filipino-American chef and two-time “Top Chef” contender Dale Talde. The menu boasts an impressive variety of recognizable dishes, each classic favorite made slightly more intriguing through Talde’s inventive vision for the possibilities of Asian cuisine. Flavors are celebrated, rather than shied away from; the dry-aged beef potstickers, for instance, are to be dipped in an addicting Chinese mustard horseradish, and smashed crispy fingerling potatoes are coated in a turmeric caramel sauce, then sprinkled with pickled chilies.
But while there’s no fear of flavor in the treatment of the cuisine, there's still potential for fright. Just like the suites directly above, the ground-floor eatery has played host to numerous haunted happenings. Carlos Baz, the general manager of Goosefeather, described a team meeting during which doors flew open seemingly in response to a mention of ghosts. He also recalled a waitress’s account of seeing a little kid heading into a closet, only to follow and find no one there. If the story is to be believed, there may be more spirits than Sybil alone wishing for a taste of Talde’s food.
If your appetite for the paranormal has yet to be satisfied, there are still plenty of places in Sleepy Hollow and the surrounding area where you might bump into a ghost — or, at least, spook yourself into believing that you could.
In Irvington, there’s the Church of St. Barnabas, a 19th-century Gothic Revival church that many former occupants, including pastors and their family members, have continued to call home long after their bodies have been buried. A sign outside of the church proclaims that all are welcome, promising no discrimination against those spirits that still maintain an earthly presence.
At Tarrytown Music Hall, lights frequently turn on after hours, and the sound of a singer practicing vocal exercises sometimes originates from empty wings with no logical source. In addition to a full schedule of live performances, the 136-year-old theater is conducting a series of ghost tours throughout the month of October.
And on the border between Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, Patriots Park is home to a memorial commemorating the nearby capture of Major John André, a British spy who was carrying documents given to him by Benedict Arnold. The spot has long been thought to be haunted, a perception that provided Washington Irving with a fitting setting for the climax of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”
When Ichabod Crane passes a gnarled tulip tree known as “Major André’s tree,” his paranoia picks up in tandem with the speed of the wind. Just past the tree is where Crane first lays eyes on an imposing figure that would soon make himself known as none other than the Headless Horseman.
The tulip tree is no longer standing, but if you listen closely in the empty hours of the early morning, you might hear the major's spirit reciting one of his published poems near the monument.
Although these ghostly happenings are not confined to a single season, it should come as little surprise that such a haunted locale would experience a tourism boom every October. As flocks of New York City residents head in the direction opposite that of the migrating warblers for the opportunity to gaze upon the Hudson Valley’s fall foliage, Sleepy Hollow offers a particular draw for those visitors looking to get into the Halloween spirit.
But it wasn’t until 1996 that the town fully capitalized on the popularity of Irving’s “Legend.”
After the Philipse family ended up on the wrong side of the Revolutionary War, the village was briefly called Beekmantown for a wealthy New Yorker by the name of Gerard G. Beekman, who purchased 900 acres of the family’s former land and operated a farm on what was to eventually become the town’s commercial streets. One of the only mentions of Sleepy Hollow was in the name of the cemetery, which was renamed from "Tarrytown Cemetery" in 1865, a change requested by Irving back in 1849 but not implemented until after the writer's death.
The population grew with the development of Tarrytown Harbor, the construction of an aqueduct, and the arrival of the railroad. In 1874, the village was incorporated as North Tarrytown. Over the course of the 20th century, the area became known for automobile manufacturing, particularly once General Motors inherited a plant along the waterfront as a result of the company's 1918 acquisition of Chevrolet.
While Irving can be held directly responsible for the cemetery’s name change, it was also his influence that inspired North Tarrytown residents to switch up the town’s name in 1996.
The General Motors plant, which had long provided North Tarrytown with an abundance of economic opportunity, ceased operations in June of that year and left the town searching for a new identity. Many feared that North Tarrytown had no future without the tax revenue that General Motors had generated and the jobs that the enormous plant had created. In a way, they were right — after the plant closed, North Tarrytown, at least in name, ceased to exist.
In its place, Sleepy Hollow was reborn.
The 1996 vote that helped North Tarrytown to more thoroughly embrace its legacy as the authentic location of Irving's classic legend was the culmination of an impassioned campaign that asserted a name change would cement the town's status as a tourist destination for years to come.
Those who cast ballots in favor of the switch were soon validated in their opinion that the transformation would attract more visitors, and not only during the Halloween season. While the prospect of strolling the streets of Sleepy Hollow in October certainly appeals to anyone able to appreciate a good ghost story, the inventive marketing tactic has also attracted literary and history buffs alike throughout the entire year. A further boost in tourism came in 2005 when a British ghost investigator visited the area and proclaimed that it was the most haunted place in the world.
From evening lantern tours in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to performances of Irving's "Legend" at Sunnyside, Sleepy Hollow and nearby towns deliver no shortage of activities to make a trip to Westchester worthwhile. Countless landmarks from centuries past ensure that the rich history of the area is on full display at the most popular attractions. And especially for those visiting Sleepy Hollow from the city that never sleeps, the sprawling estates overlooking the Hudson River and meandering carriage roads framed in the magnificent hues of fall foliage offer an ideal setting for a seasonal escape.
There's no guarantee of ghosts, but with so much else to discover during your visit, there doesn't need to be.
Perhaps, though, at a moment when you're least expecting it, you'll catch a flash of movement out of the corner of your eye or pick up on a faint voice drifting through the trees that's unlike any coyote's call that you've heard before. Maybe you'll feel a shiver down your spine from a breeze that's slightly colder than all the rest, or you'll sense that someone is matching you step-for-step when there's no one else around. You'll pause among the headstones or linger behind as your tour group shuffles into the next room, and there will be no other sign of that presence, no sounds other than leaves rustling on tree branches in their dying moments, no sights other than a single leaf, unable to hold on for any longer, lazily drifting toward a bed of fallen comrades.
But as you hurry on your way, you'll be unable to shake off the sensation that, just for a blip of time in one of the world's most haunted towns, you weren't actually alone.
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