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.
The spirit of Sleepy Hollow lives on
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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.
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