Sleepy Hollow, New York

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Sleepy Hollow is a village in the town of Mount Pleasant in Westchester County, New York, United States.

The village is located on the east bank of the Hudson River, about Template:Convert north of New York City, and is served by the Philipse Manor stop on the Metro-North Hudson Line. To the south of Sleepy Hollow is the village of Tarrytown, and to the north and east are unincorporated parts of Mount Pleasant. The population of the village at the 2020 census was 9,986.[1]

File:BeekmanAvenueSleepyHollow1.jpg
Beekman Avenue, Sleepy Hollow's main street. The tower on the left is the Village Hall.

Originally incorporated as North Tarrytown in the late 19th century as a way to draft off Tarrytown's success during the Industrial Revolution, the village adopted its current name in 1996,[2] some three and a half centuries after the first Dutch settlers called the area "Slapershaven" or "Sleepers' Haven."[3]

The village is known internationally through "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", an 1820 short story by Washington Irving about the local area and its infamous specter, the Headless Horseman. Irving lived in Tarrytown and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where numerous other notable people are buried. Owing to "The Legend", as well as the village's roots in early American history and folklore, Sleepy Hollow is considered by some to be one of the "most haunted places in the world".[4][5][6] Despite this designation, Sleepy Hollow has also been called "one of the safest places to live in the United States".[7]

History

File:LowerPocanticoRiver.jpg
Lower course of Pocantico River near Philipsburg Manor House – part of the area which the early Dutch colonists named "Slapershaven," or "Sleepers' Haven." The name was later Anglicized as “Sleepy Hollow.”
File:Philipsburg Manor, Sleepy Hollow, New York.JPG
Philipsburg Manor House at the Upper Mills

The two square miles of land that would become Sleepy Hollow was originally occupied by the Wecquaesgeek, a band of Munsee Lenape people.[8] In 1609, Henry Hudson claimed the Hudson Valley (known then as the Tappan Zee) for the Netherlands.[9] There was relative peace between the Native Americans and the Dutch until the mid-seventeenth century, and the Dutch West India Company had been providing its investors with large land grants called patroonships to encourage settlement of the New Netherland colony on lands bought from local Native American tribes along the East Coast of what is now the United States.

The Upper Mills

Much of the land that would become Philipsburg Manor had previously belonged to Adriaen van der Donck, who had invested in such a patroonship before the English conquest of New Netherland in 1664. In 1672, merchants Frederick Philipse, Thomas Delavall, and Thomas Lewis purchased from his widow's brother the first tracts of land in current-day northern Yonkers.[10] Philipse made several additional purchases between 1680 and 1686 from the Wiechquaeskeck and Sintsink tribes, expanding the property to both the north and south. Philipse also bought out his partners' stakes during this time, enticing friends from New Amsterdam and Long Island to move with him with the promise of free land and limited taxes. The manor grew to around 52,000 acres (21,000 ha) or about 81 sq mi (210 km2), comprising much of today's lower Westchester County, Philipse was granted a royal charter in 1693, creating the Manor of Philipsburg and establishing him as first lord.[11]

File:5 boros of NYC in 1814.jpg
Sleepy Hollow appears on this 1814 map as Philipsburg.

Philipse established his country seat at the mouth of the Pocantico River, in the northern part of his manor, which would be called the Upper Mills. A small Dutch community had already been firmly established there when he arrived in 1683.[12] He built a mill and shipping depot, today part of the Philipse Manor House historic site. A pious man, he was architect and financier of the settlement's stone church, known today as the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, and was said to have built the pulpit with his own hands.[13] The church served successive lords and ladies of the manor and their tenant farmers (who were largely Dutch, French Huguenot, Swiss, and German immigrants[14]) until the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War.

File:OldDutchChurch2020.jpg
The Old Dutch Church in 2020.

When Philipse died in 1702, the manor was divided between his son, Adolphus Philipse, and his grandson, Frederick Philipse II. Adolph received the Upper Mills property, which extended from Dobbs Ferry to the Croton River. Frederick II was given the Lower Mills at the confluence of the Saw Mill and Hudson Rivers, the two parcels being reunited on his uncle's death. His son, Frederick Philipse III, became the third lord of the manor in 1751.[11]

In the late 1790s, Washington Irving visited the Sleepy Hollow area with his friend James K. Paulding, a local militiaman who in 1780 had previously helped capture British Major John Andre in what is now known as Patriot's Park and thereby foiled the plans of Benedict Arnold during the American Revolutionary War.[15] Together they explored the area, hunting, fishing and talking with the local folk. The visits of Irving—and the local folklore and ghost tales he heard while there—were immortalized in the story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow".

Beekman Town

File:Benedict Avenue.jpg
Almost all houses on Beekman Avenue, built during the industrial boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, have survived urban renewal of the 1960s-1970s, when other parts of the village’s business district were rebuilt.

In 1779, Frederick III, a Loyalist, was attainted for treason. Philipsburg Manor was confiscated and sold at public auction, split between 287 buyers, most of whom were Philipses’ tenant farmers who used the opportunity to buy the plots they worked. The largest tract of land (about Template:Convert) was at the Upper Mills.[11] It was purchased by the New York merchant Gerard (sometimes spelled Gerardus) Garret Beekman Jr., a member of the prominent Beekman family. Beekman had served in the American Revolution as a lieutenant in the 1st New York Regiment.[16] He operated his Upper Mills property as an agricultural enterprise consisting of small farms worked by veterans of the Revolution.[14]

Gerard Beekman died in 1822, and his widow, Cornelia, laid out a portion of the estate into streets and sold building lots.[17] The development became known as Beekman Town (also spelled Beekmantown), with Beekman Street (soon to be upgraded to Beekman Avenue) as its main street.[18] Cornelia was a known figure among Westchester Patriots[19] and a daughter of Pierre Van Cortlandt, the first lieutenant governor of New York. She named one of the streets "Cortlandt" and another one "Clinton," after George Clinton, the first governor of New York. By 1839, all lots were sold and released to the town of Mount Pleasant. Sometime after 1866, the waterfront tract at the foot of Beekman Avenue was bought by Ambrose Kingsland as part of his Hudson River estate.

Meanwhile, Beekman Town's closest neighbor, Tarrytown, was developing as a trading center on the Albany Post Road and a commercial port on the Hudson River. The Industrial Revolution brought to it a railway station on the Hudson River Railroad, industrial mills, banks, and throngs of new people. Eventually, the industrial boom started spilling over into Beekman Town. Constructed between 1837 and 1842, the first Croton Aqueduct, New York City’s original water supply system, passed through Beekman Town as part of its route to the city. It was built primarily by Irish immigrants[20] (as was the Hudson River Railroad[21]), many of whom settled in the village.[17]

File:OldCrotonAqueductSleepyHollow.jpg
Section of the Old Croton Aqueduct (which is now a linear state historic park) in Sleepy Hollow

North Tarrytown

Beekman Town incorporated in 1874 as North Tarrytown, using the recognizable name of its commercially successful neighbor to the south. Italian, German, and Eastern European immigrants began settling in the Tarrytowns in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to open stores and shops and join the industrial workforce.

North Tarrytown began its association with the automobile industry in 1899, when magazine publisher, developer, and automobile enthusiast John Brisben Walker acquired the Stanley Brothers patents, bought the North Tarrytown segment of the former Ambrose Kingsland estate, and built there a large factory, designed by McKim, Mead & White, to produce steam-powered "Mobiles." In 1900, his Mobile Company of America went into operation at the foot of Beekman Avenue. Advertising claimed it to be the largest automobile factory in the world.[22]

Walker began subdividing the northern part of his North Tarrytown property, attempting to capitalize on the site's location along the Hudson River Railroad. One of his selling points for this residential development, called Philipse Manor in a confused reference to nearby Philipsburg Manor House,[23] was the rail access, but this failed to materialize, and Walker's Philipse Manor Land Company floundered. The Mobile Company of America also failed: steam-powered carriages proved to be inferior to gasoline internal combustion vehicles. The heavily indebted Walker had to sell his North Tarrytown properties to William Abraham Bell, who had invested in Walker’s automobile venture.[24] Bell, with his extensive experience in railroad development, not only continued the residential construction at Philipse Manor but also made the rail service possible by building the station and presenting it to the railroad.[25][26] Wealthy New Yorkers started eagerly buying homes in Philipse Manor. A second residential neighborhood, Sleepy Hollow Manor, was developed in the vicinity of the station in the 1920s, on the former estate of renowned explorer and politician John C. Frémont. Today, the two neighborhoods form the northern part of the village. The Philipse Manor station is on the National Register of Historic Places.

File:PhilipseManorStationPlatform.jpg
Northbound platform and tracks of the Philipse Manor station in 2020. Kingsland Point Park is in the background.

In 1903, the closed automobile plant at the foot of Beekman Avenue was leased (and subsequently sold) to Maxwell-Briscoe, manufacturer of gasoline internal combustion automobiles. Destroyed in a fire in 1907, it was rebuilt and acquired by Chevrolet in 1914-1915. In 1918, Chevrolet was integrated into General Motors (GM), and the plant became the GM North Tarrytown Assembly facility.

In the 1920s, a parcel of the former Ambrose Kingsland estate where Kingsland's opulent mansion once stood[27] was acquired by New York's Westchester County and converted into a public park. It opened in 1926 and was named Kingsland Point Park.[28]

By the middle of the 20th century, North Tarrytown was a quintessential factory town, with the sprawling GM plant, or “the Shop” as the locals called it, being the village's single largest employer. The ranks of GM workers had swelled with French Canadian, Polish, and Slovak immigrants, followed by Cubans, Dominicans, Ecuadorians, and others.[14] The plant at its peak employed over 4,000 workers.

File:Former site of North Tarrytown Assembly in 2020.jpg
Partially redeveloped site of North Tarrytown Assembly in 2020. (In the background: residential community Ichabod's Landing and Tappan Zee Bridge.)
File:Barnhart Park in Sleepy Hollow.jpg
Barnhart Park on Andrews Lane today occupies part of the site of a P.R. Mallory and Co. (later, Duracell) battery manufacturing facility, which closed in 1984

The industrial heyday of the Tarrytowns lasted until the 1973–1975 recession in the United States. Manufacturing employment in the Tarrytowns started steadily declining, following a nationwide trend. The Duracell (formerly, P. R. Mallory and Co) battery manufacturing facility on Elm Street closed in 1984. The North Tarrytown Assembly followed in 1996. Manufacturing buildings were demolished, and the two heavily polluted sites would undergo a lengthy decontamination.[29][30]

The Village of Sleepy Hollow

File:SleepyHollowRiverWalk.jpg
View of Tappan Zee, with Tarrytown Light, from the Sleepy Hollow section of Westchester RiverWalk
File:Sleepy Hollow Village Hall.jpg
The Sleepy Hollow Village Hall, with a stained glass window featuring the legendary Headless Horseman

With its days as a factory town over, North Tarrytown began reconnecting with, and drawing upon, its storied history, literary heritage, and natural beauty of its surroundings. Luckily, much of its historic and natural sites survived the industrial era, largely through the restoration and preservation efforts of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and other members of several generations of the Rockefeller family.

In 1996, the same year General Motors closed its North Tarrytown operations, the village officially changed its name to the historical name of the area immortalized in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Some 20 years later, the former GM site was developed into a large residential community called Edge-on-Hudson. The site's extensive waterfront, which was inaccessible to the public for more than a century, is now part of the Westchester RiverWalk, offering breathtaking views of the Hudson River. Sleepy Hollow has become a major tourist destination, especially during the Halloween season, when tens of thousands of people flock to the village, drawn by its myths, legends, and historic sites. In the words of Washington Irving, "the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie" ("The Legend of Sleepy Hollow").

Geography

Sleepy Hollow is located at Template:Coord (41.091998, −73.864361).[31] According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of Template:Convert, of which Template:Convert is land and Template:Convert, or 55.58%, is water.[32]

File:Patriots Park Tarrytown NY water basin and stone bridge.jpg
Andre Brook in Patriot's Park

The boundary between Tarrytown on the south and Sleepy Hollow on the north runs more or less along Andre Brook (formerly, Clark's Kill), which originates on Kykuit Hill above the villages and empties into the Hudson River near Tarrytown Boat Club. These days, the brook flows mostly through culverts under streets and roadways, daylighting in a few places near the Sleepy Hollow High School and in Patriot's Park.

The two villages share the postal (ZIP) code 10591.

Directly across the river from Sleepy Hollow is the village of Nyack in New York's Rockland County.

Demographics

Template:US Census population As of the census[33] of 2010, there were 9,870 people, 3,181 households, and 2,239 families residing in the village. The population density was Template:Convert. There were 3,253 housing units at an average density of Template:Convert. The racial makeup of the village was 61.0% White, 6.2% African American, 0.8% Native American, 3.3% Asian, <0.1% Pacific Islander, 23.5% from other races, and 5.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 51.0% of the population, many of whom are Ecuadorian, Dominican, Chilean, and Puerto Rican. Sleepy Hollow has one of the highest proportions of Ecuadorian American residents of any community nationwide, standing at 17.5% as of the 2010 census.

There were 3,181 households, out of which 36.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.5% were married couples living together, 13.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.6% were non-families. 23.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.89 and the average family size was 3.37.

In the village, the population was spread out, with 25.0% under the age of 18, 8.9% from 18 to 24, 36.7% from 25 to 44, 18.9% from 45 to 64, and 10.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 103.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 101.9 males.

The median income for a household in the village was $54,201, and the median income for a family was $63,889. Males had a median income of $39,923 versus $32,146 for females. The per capita income for the village was $28,325. About 5.7% of families and 7.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.3% of those under age 18 and 7.9% of those age 65 or over.

Notable landmarks

The village is home to the aforementioned Philipsburg Manor House and the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, listed as National Historic Landmarks. Local sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) are the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery; Patriot's Park; the Edward Harden Mansion, now serving as the administration building for the Public Schools of the Tarrytowns; the Philipse Manor Railroad Station, now repurposed by the Hudson Valley Writers Center; the Tarrytown Light; and the Old Croton Aqueduct State Historic Park, segments of which run through Sleepy Hollow.

Just outside the village boundaries are several more sites listed in the NRHP, including the Rockefeller estate, Kykuit; the Scarborough Historic District, with Sleepy Hollow Country Club as its contributing property; and the Union Church of Pocantico Hills. Rockefeller State Park Preserve (on the New York State Register of Historic Places) abuts the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Part of the preserve containing the remnants of William Rockefeller Jr.'s estate, Rockwood Hall, lies just north of Sleepy Hollow's Phelps Hospital. On the campus of the hospital, across the road from Rockwood Hall, sits the handsome Italianate-style mansion, the James House, one of a few remaining mid-19th-century mansions in the lower Hudson Valley. The granite and brownstone mansion was built in 1851 for the son of copper magnate Anson Green Phelps. (It is now a rental venue.)

Worth visiting is also the village’s picturesque northernmost neighborhood, Sleepy Hollow Manor, with its meandering tree-lined streets and handsome houses built in the 1920s and 1930s on the former estate of John C. Frémont. His now-updated house still overlooks the Hudson River there. Also of note is Kingsland Point Park with its massive Kidd's Rock (according to local lore, the boulder was a clandestine meeting place for Frederick Philipse and Captain Kidd, a privateer-turned-pirate and allegedly a business associate of Philipse).[34] On Broadway (U.S. Route 9), near the Old Dutch Church, visitors can see an 18th-century milestone. Broadway was part of the historic Albany Post Road, and milestones were placed along it to assist travelers with navigation and to help calculate postage delivery fees. Broadway, New York's longest street, ends less than a mile north of this stone marker, on the northern boundary of Sleepy Hollow.

Gallery

Emergency services

File:SHFD1.jpg
One of the three fire engines during a parade in nearby Pleasantville

Template:As of, the village's police department had 27 officers, four school crossing guards, and three civilian employees.[35] The village is also served by the New York State Police and Westchester County Department of Public Safety.[36] Police officers from the villages of Sleepy Hollow and Dobbs Ferry, the town of Greenburgh, and the New York State Police make up a Marine / H.E.A.T. Unit.[37] As of 2006, police base salaries in Sleepy Hollow were low compared to other Westchester County forces, in part due to the lower tax base.[38]

The Sleepy Hollow Fire Department began with organization of the North Tarrytown Fire Patrol on May 26, 1876. Within 25 years it had grown to five companies in three fire stations. As of 2019, there were three engines, one tower ladder, one rescue, and other equipment. The fire department is run by volunteers and responds to over 300 calls each year. The local Phelps Hospital responds to hundreds of emergencies per year.[39]

Emergency medical services in Sleepy Hollow depend on volunteers assisted by paid staff. The Ambulance Corps has two basic life support ambulances. Mount Pleasant Paramedics provides advanced life support.[40]

Education

Most of Sleepy Hollow is in Union Free School District of the Tarrytowns while a portion is in Pocantico Hills Central School District.[41] Sleepy Hollow High School is part of the Union Free School District of Tarrytowns.[42] The mascot of the school is the Headless Horseman.[43] It is consistently ranked in the top 5-10% of high schools in New York State.[44]

The Warner Library, member of Westchester Library System, is located on North Broadway just south of Patriot's Park where Tarrytown ends and Sleepy Hollow begins. The library has served both villages since 1929. It was built and gifted to the two communities by Worcester Reed Warner, a mechanical engineer, wealthy industrialist, and philanthropist, and his wife Cornelia.[45] The library provides a wide variety of cultural and educational resources, from bilingual storytimes and thematic lectures to concerts and art workshops.

In popular culture

Sleepy Hollow has been used as a setting or filming location for numerous media works, including films, games, literature, motion pictures, and television productions, including:

Headstone with an American Flag to the left
Washington Irving's headstone in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
Literature
  • Sleepy Hollow is the setting of Washington Irving's short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), its many adaptations in other media, and its major characters, Ichabod Crane and The Headless Horseman.
Films
Games
Television

Television shot on location in Sleepy Hollow includes:

Notable people

Template:Alumni

See also

References

Template:Reflist

External links

Template:Sister project

Template:Westchester County, New York Template:Sleepy Hollow Template:Hudson River Template:Authority control

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  10. ↑ Maika, Dennis J. (2005). "Philipsburg Manor". Encyclopedia of the State of New York, First ed. (Peter Eisenstadt, ed.). Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. p. 1199. Template:ISBN
  11. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  12. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  13. ↑ Edited Appletons Encyclopedia, Famous Americans: Biography of Frederick Philipse: "...He worked at the carpenter's trade for several years, aided in building the Old Dutch church, and is said to have made the pulpit with his own hands.
  14. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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  23. ↑ The actual Philipse Manor is in Yonkers, some Template:Convert to the south (both manor houses served the original Philipsburg Manor).
  24. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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