Sleepy Hollow Happenings
Note: I wrote this essay before COVID-19 began its ominous spread around the world. Now, the events of last autumn in Sleepy Hollow seem surreal. We actually attended performances and exhibitions with tens, hundreds, and thousands of people packed together? I hope that someday soon, we will be able to gather safely again to celebrate the times of our lives together.
This bold sign welcomes visitors to the home of Halloween.
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Like Claire, I suffer from migraines. Luckily, mine are far less frequent and painful than hers, but I am still incapacitated by them for an hour or more. For me, the best course of action during a migraine is inaction. I lie on the couch in the living room, lights off, and listen to Audible stories with my eyes closed. One of my favorite migraine stories is Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,”* read by mellow-voiced B. J. Harrison. I love the rich, rambling descriptions of the autumnal New York countryside, the astounding array of food offered at the Van Tassels’ harvest party, and the cozy firesides by which Ichabod exchanges ghost stories with the “old wives.” I also love the ambiguous ending, which leaves to listeners the question of whether they have just heard about a jealous prank or a supernatural occurrence. Even if my migraine is a doozy, I always feel better in my soul after hearing this story.
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” led me to a wonderful travel experience recently. I got up from the couch one late summer day in 2018 thinking, “Is Sleepy Hollow a real place? I think it might be!” A quick Internet search uncovered a flock of images that clinched my query: an old stone church with wafer-like gravestones, corn shocks bordering a rustic “welcome” sign, and, best of all, a black-cloaked rider tearing along a golden path on a powerful black horse, holding a pumpkin while lacking a head. Sleepy Hollow, New York, is not only a real place, it’s a glorious place, a place steeped in history, mystery, and Halloween. My kind of place.
In October of the following year, my husband, Pete, and I visited the Adirondack Mountains and then Sleepy Hollow, spending five days in the latter location. This trip was a dream come true for me, yet the dream was one that I didn’t know had a basis in reality until I launched an Internet search after hearing the story through a migraine-addled brain.
That dream has its roots in my deep love of autumn and of Halloween. Sleepy Hollow is the epicenter of Halloween as far as I’m concerned!
It’s always time for jack-o’-lanterns in Sleepy Hollow, New York.
I could hardly contain my delight as we explored the downtown during a fundraiser fair in support of the local fire department. The streets of Sleepy Hollow have names like Van Tassel Place and Crane Avenue, and the streets signs themselves are orange and black, with a silhouette of the Headless One stamped in metal after the name. Year-round, a sculpture of a cocked, grinning jack-o’-lantern head, its interior smudged as if from a candle flame, keeps vigil under an old-fashioned clock with four faces. The ambulances and firetrucks are painted with images of Ichabod and his nemesis, and there’s a dedicated parking place in front of the firehouse for the H. H., as I began to think of the Headless Horseman while visiting Sleepy Hollow. (I suppose he would tie his horse there.) The high school athletic teams are called the Horsemen and Horsemen Girls. What Halloween fan or Irving admirer wouldn’t love these fanciful, fond choices?
But it was the autumn events that really sparked my attraction to Sleepy Hollow. Many of these are sponsored by Historic Hudson Valley, a non-profit organization, and if you plan to visit the area, I highly recommend joining by early summertime for a fall trip. Membership for us included free tickets to several properties and events and the chance to buy other desirable tickets early and at reduced rates. Plus, that membership card in my wallet gave me a comfortable sense of connection to the mild, mellow Hudson Valley long before I ever arrived.
Since no one wants to hear every detail of another person’s trip, I’m going to write about just a few of the highlights.
Festive decorations adorn the family plot of the Irvings.
Nighttime walking tour of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery: This beautiful, hilly cemetery in Tarrytown, just north of the town of Sleepy Hollow, is very popular with visitors at all times but especially in the fall. (Only a few guided tours are held during the winter months, but you’re free to explore year-round on your own during the daylight hours.) We chose to take the traditional tour rather than the one named “Murder and Mayhem,” the description of which sounded a bit lurid to us. Surprisingly, there is no ghost tour of this burial ground. Walking in a storied, centuries-old cemetery on a misty October evening; viewing the graves in the swinging light of kerosene lanterns; and listening to the tales of love, redemption, and revenge told by a well-versed tour guide, I felt that the Sleepy Hollow atmosphere was creeping into me via the soles of my damp boots. Astors, Carnegies, Hamiltons, and Rockefellers abide here, along with Washington Irving himself. His grave in the Irving Family Graveplot is situated safely behind a locked gate due to the past inclination of visitors to chip off a piece of his headstone as a souvenir. I was charmed to see a bronze-colored mum plant, bales of straw, corn shocks, white and orange pumpkins, and a flickering jack-o’-lantern arranged before the Irving gate. Visitors were honoring the author in a way that I’m sure he would appreciate.
This sea dragon is made of dozens of hand-carved jacks.
Jack-o’-Lantern Blaze: This event, which is sponsored by Historic Hudson Valley, is held in Croton-on-Hudson nearly every night in October, plus weekends in late September and throughout November. Be sure to buy your tickets well ahead of time because this event consistently sells out, and for good reason—it’s amazing! Ten thousand carved, illuminated pumpkins are fitted into rebar-like frames to make elaborate glowing statues and structures. We saw the Tappen See Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, a carousel with skeletal horses, an undulating sea dragon, a trotting Pegasus, an enormous spider’s web in front of a field of spinners, life-sized dinosaurs of all stripes, and, of course, the Headless Horseman Bridge, complete with the chilling sounds effects of hoofbeats and whinnies. And that’s just a partial list! The Blaze is a glorious, over-the-top, mind-bending paean to that most festive of Halloween decorations, the jack-o’-lantern. Lying in bed that night, I saw constellations of swooping, beaming jacks whenever I closed my eyes.
The Headless Horseman makes an unexpected appearance after the performance of Irving’s “Legend” at the Old Dutch Church.
Irving’s “Legend”: Another Historic Hudson Valley production, and another event that shouldn’t be missed—buy your tickets online, ahead of time! Irving’s “Legend” is a performance of the spooky tale by a single storyteller; his only accompaniment are tunes played on the mandolin by a costumed musician. The setting for this performance is the Old Dutch Church, a prominent element of the original story’s climax, as Ichabod Crane races on his borrowed horse to reach the safety of the nearby stream with the Headless Horseman in menacing pursuit. The church is decorated with carved pumpkins, Indian corn, and flickering candles, and the audience sits on carved church pews, listening with growing excitement, fear, and uncertainty as the storyteller spins his two-hundred-year-old spell for children and former children, who feel like children again for a time.
I first experienced “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” through words spoken rather than read. Although I bought two separate editions of Irving’s stories and essays on our trip, I still have never read his “Legend.” Instead, I’ve settled on the couch with my husband and cat in front of a snapping fire, turned out the electric lights, and listened once again to the marvelous tale of Ichabod Crane and his haunting experiences in dream-like Sleepy Hollow, on the blue banks of the Hudson.
* “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was first published in 1819. Several descriptive paragraphs contain stereotypes of that era. Most modern readers will be uncomfortable with these.