Free previewStop 5 of Sleepy Hollow: The Legend Walk
The Name He Insisted On
You've crossed the bridge and climbed into Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, on the slope just north of the Old Dutch Church burying ground. Head for the Irving family plot and find one small white marble stone with rounded corners and soft edges. That's Washington Irving's grave. It is almost aggressively modest, set in a cemetery of about 90 acres.
Irving was the man who invented this place's fame. He was sent to Tarrytown as a teenager in 1798 to escape a yellow fever outbreak in Manhattan, and the Hudson country stayed with him. He went on to write "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," published in 1820.
By the late 1840s the Old Dutch churchyard no longer had adequate burial space for the growing community. In 1847 the New York legislature passed the Rural Cemetery Act, which authorized commercial burial grounds.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 5 of Sleepy Hollow: The Legend Walk (3 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
