The spirit of Sleepy Hollow lives on

Washington Irving

SLEEPY HOLLOW, N.Y. - The Old Dutch Church remains, perched upon the same green knoll where Ichabod Crane, a timid schoolmaster, was galloping to sanctuary with the Headless Horseman hot behind him. Crane, alas, never made it to the church. But since the story of his hellish adventure appeared in print in 1820, enthralled readers have made it the object of a literary pilgrimage.

Despite gas stations, traffic, and other reminders of modernity in this Hudson Valley village-turned-suburb, enough other landmarks in the tale have survived to allow those under its spell to retrace the short chase, less than a mile from its startled start to its abrupt ending.

In his day, Washington Irving, who lived from 1783 to 1859, was immensely popular. He was one of the first American writers to claim an international readership and to make a living by the pen alone. Like Charles Dickens, who once dined at Irving’s nearby home, Irving achieved a celebrity that today’s best-selling authors would envy. So this village (population 10,200), about 30 miles north of New York City, is no stranger to ghoul-seeking tourists. It even changed its name from North Tarrytown to Sleepy Hollow in 1996, and its official website bills the village as “Halloween Central.’’ A cavalcade of events, from the Great Jack-o-Lantern Blaze to readings of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,’’ unfolds over the weekends leading up to the holiday.

With or without the amped-up spookiness, an autumn ramble along Crane’s route makes for an easy walk of just under a mile on North Broadway (Route 9). But, as Irving cautioned in beginning his tale, beware: “However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, [visitors] are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions.’’

The Horseman, as “The Legend’’ holds, was the spirit of a Hessian mercenary beheaded by a cannon ball in a Revolutionary War battle nearby. The cloaked spirit emerged near the spot where, in 1780, the local militia captured British spy Major John André, who was in cahoots with turncoat Benedict Arnold to hand over West Point to the British. The Captors’ Monument in Patriots’ Park, in Tarrytown (the next village south), now marks that spot, and this is where the journey begins. Because of André’s fate - he was hanged, though not here - local superstition held this place to be haunted, and Crane is uneasy when he passes it, even before the Horseman steps out of the “cavernous gloom.’’

About half a mile north lies Philipsburg Manor, a restored 17th-century Anglo-Dutch plantation. Although the riders may have galloped past its gate, its large mill pond also figures in “The Legend’’ when Irving describes Crane in happier days, “sauntering with a whole bevy’’ of damsels along its banks. Today the property hosts tours by costumed interpreters, who explain the mechanics of the working flour mill, the role of 23 slaves in running the plantation, and the operation of the vast tenant-farming system that once spread over most of Westchester County.

After a short canter up Route 9 - about a tenth of a mile - a sculpture of Crane and the Horseman appears in a median strip on the right, the capes of the riders and the tails of their horses tangling with the wind. The piece blends into the surrounding trees, much as the cloaked Hessian and his black steed melted in and out of the night shadows.

Then comes the bridge. Built in 1912 and marked by a plaque, it spans a narrow stretch of the Pocantico River. It isn’t the plank bridge that clattered beneath the horses’ hooves in the tale. For the sake of the imaginary journey, though, it will do. “If I can but reach that bridge,’’ thought Ichabod, “I am safe.’’ At that moment, the Horseman hurled his head at Crane. The hideous object “encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash,’’ and knocked the skinny schoolmaster into the road. The dark horse and rider thundered past, along with Crane’s less agile nag.

Only a few dozen yards ahead lies the Old Dutch Church, whose holy power Crane had hoped would dispatch his tormenter “in a flash of fire and brimstone.’’ That apparently didn’t happen, but it’s no reason not to roam the atmospheric Old Dutch Burying Ground, which spreads out around it. Dutch and English names are chiseled into the worn markers.

The adjoining Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, which continues on up the hill behind the church, contains the well-marked grave of Irving, who has been joined by other famous Americans including Andrew Carnegie, Brooke Astor, and Elizabeth Arden. This cemetery displays the grander marble monuments that came into fashion around the mid-19th century. Winding roads wrap around the steep hill in the Romantic style of the era. The accidental spookiness of neglect is overtaking the upper slopes: Branches of overgrown Norway spruce shade 19th-century family plots fenced in by rusty railings, and thickets enfold some of the older stones.

After retracing the ride, many pilgrims pay homage to Irving at the author’s wisteria-draped cottage, now a house museum, on the banks of the Hudson River. This means doubling back, by car, a few miles south to the Tarrytown/Irvington line. The property, called Sunnyside, includes 10 acres of verdant landscape. House tours tell the story of Irving’s life, which was relatively happy, save for the death of his sweetheart (of tuberculosis) when he was a young man. He never married.

As to the fate of Ichabod Crane, the story says that villagers found his hat on the riverbank and presumed he had drowned. Others heard that he had moved to a distant part of the country and taken up law. But some suspected that Crane’s rival in love had played a cruel prank to scare off his competitor. All we know is that Crane was never seen in these parts again, and that the shards of a pumpkin lay scattered near his hat.

Jane Roy Brown can be reached at regan-brown.com.