Heartfelt History
Presents
Chilling American Authors and Their Spine-Tingling Stories of Yore
Part 4
We conclude our October series with a well-known American author who was born in 1783 and named after the first President of The United States. He like Poe, Lovecraft and Chambers lived in New York City for a time and he even coined the term “Gotham” for the metropolis.
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Washington Irving
“Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains…”
― The beginning of Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle
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New York City was Irving’s home as a child but the Hudson River Valley just to the north was the place where he spent much of his life. The “magical hues” along the Hudson that Irving mentioned in Rip Van Winkle were transformed into a shadowy and apparitional landscape in his popular tale that takes place in the nearby village of Tarrytown, NY and its surroundings:
“There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land...”
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Irving builds upon the lore of Tarrytown by sharing local Revolutionary War history. He does this by referencing the story of Major John André, a British intelligence officer who was captured by three members of the Continental Army near an old, gnarled tulip-tree…
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“All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the centre of the road stood an enormous tulip-tree, which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air. It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate André, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and was universally known by the name of Major André’s tree”
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Irving reinforces the frightening ambiance with other ghost stories such as the woman in white: “Some mention was made also of the woman in white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow…”
and
“The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patrolling the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard.”
Heartfelt History’s spine-tingling story of the week:
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
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Click the play button below to listen to the spine-tingling conclusion of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. (3)
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Sources:
1) Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving
2) The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
3) Librivox.org recording of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Portion of Part 2 – public domain
Other photos, text in the public domain
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