SPOOKED STONES
Another local legend offers another explanation for the spooky sensation hanging over this region. Dutch settlers, eager to plant their “tarwe” or wheat, found an open field beside a great stone. Inauspiciously, it turned out to be a burial ground from which the Native locals warned the Dutch to keep away with their iron plows. They told their new neighbors the grounds were tainted by a spell.
A local Weckquasgeek chief once called a war council on that great stone near the great chestnut tree. He condemned an interloping tribe: “They have come here where we live, to take game, pick berries and eat shellfish. Yet, they offer us no wampum belts, not even a pinch of tobacco in gratitude! They give us only threats of war. We cannot share lands by the Pocantico, with these disrespectful people!” The talking stick in hand strengthened his words. When the chief demanded, “What warrior will join me in fighting them?” no one replied. They feared the powerful enemy.
At last, the silence was broken by the creak of old bones. A sage known for dreaming true dreams took up the talking stick: “We must place upon the ones who will not make peace, a deep spell.”
The tribal council agreed. The wise one told them to gather the necessary plants. They danced and chanted to conjure a curse. The invaders fell into a deathly sleep. Nature turned them into bones, their skulls stones beneath soil.
The Dutch farmers dismissed the Native tale as superstition. They went ahead, turning over the cursed stones with their metal plows. Disturbed, the captive spirits groaned in agony but escaped into the ethers of the Hollow. This caused the Dutch to fall “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” (TLSH, 4).
Washington Irving walked in a kind of reverie as a “stripling” lad. Certainly, like those good Dutch people, he fell under the sway of bewitching stories. We see this sense for the Dutch under a spell in his writing. They became the jocular caricatures we love. Renowned twentieth-century river writer Carl Carmer noted, in his 1939 book, The Hudson, that Washington Irving “amusingly” depicted New Netherlanders as “wide-rear, slow-wit Dutch fatheads.” Carmer goes on describe the Dutch settlers as “hard blond traders,” exactly the kind of folk ready to scoff at an Indian burial ground. He goes on to put forth a picture of the Dutch as contentious, feisty people. “These men and woman were actually quick to anger, peppery, captious, nervously active.” Irving’s illustrations of the Dutch show more affection. Here’s how he paints a scene of the New Netherlanders mustering for a war against the Swedish colony to the south in his 1809 book, Diedrich Knickerbocker’s History of New-York:
First came the Van Bummels…these were short fat men, wearing exceedingly large trunk-breeches, renowned for their feats of the trencher… Then Couenhovens of Sleepy Hollow; these gave rise to a jolly race of publicans, who first discovered the magic artifice of conjuring a quart of wine into a pint bottle…lastly came the Knickerbockers of the great town of Scaghtikoke, where the folk lay stones upon the houses in windy weather, lest they should be blown away.
Ten years later, in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, these same charming contrary folk are ready for a ride by a Headless Horseman. A portrait then emerges from these two authors of Dutch Americans as people excitable enough to believe in spirits. Further, they will take action on omens.
One story reflects this Dutch colonial spirit in Sleepy Hollow. Frederick Philipse arrived in the New Netherlands with next to nothing and wound up creating the richest family in the colonies.
CUFFEY’S PROPHECY
Frederick Philipse was blessed with ways to see things through to a profit. He arrived around 1640 in the New Netherlands colonial town of New Amsterdam. Lacking money, he believed his God-given noble blood would bring him wealth. Taking work in the growing colony as a carpenter, he soon found it more profitable to sell rather than hammer nails. Young Philipse put this money into a tavern and managed to marry a wealthy widow. Soon he became the lord of thousands of acres of “hunting-grounds from Spuyten Duvyil to Croton on Hudson.” There he determined to turn his wilderness into a proper productive manor and farm.
Philipse’s wife, Margaret Hardenbroeck, got rich in the slave trade. Seeing how skillfully the Africans worked, Philipse shrewdly sent them to expand his country house in “Slaper’s Haven,” Dutch for sleeper’s port, the secondary harbor in the region after Tarrytown.
Settlers renting farms from Philipse had grain to grind. This blessing Philipse acknowledged in two ways: he began to build a mill and a church. Working on the church, he gazed down the Pocantico where his mill would stand; Frederick noticed grain piling up. Finding no blessing without profit, he directed his head slave, Cuffey, to stop work on the church, dam up the river and finish the mill.
Cuffey respectfully submitted. “God, sir, should come before grain.” The lord of the manor respectfully disagreed. This did not sit well with the slave. Sleeping in that spellbound hollow, a nightmare visited Cuffey: a terrible storm would roar up the river and wash away the dam unless the church was completed first! The dutiful servant reported his dream to the master. Philipse scoffed at his superstitious slave.
The next night, the dream returned. The slave gave warning, but the landlord again ignored him. On the third night, the storm really came. Raging, it ripped down the works of men, letting the Pocantico dance into the Mahicanituck near the Hokohonkgus. Cuffey then had a different dream. He told Philipse no dam would ever hold until the church was built.
Humbled, the nervous Dutch lord took heed of the African’s intuition. He ordered his men to first complete the church. And the lord of Philipseburg Manor himself took up his old hammer and built the pulpit.
Cuffey seems to have fallen under the spell released when Dutch farmers turned over stony Native graves. He walked with “a sense of reverie.” He dreamed a prophetic dream. Around the church the seer-slave saw built, there’s risen the dam, roads, culverts, farms, factories, suburban houses and cell towers. Though redirected, the Pocantico spirits out from under those layers of change. The Native American appears like a fleeting shadow in the forest in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Yet the influence of local Native people, filtered deeply into Irving’s classic, still holds sway over the entire region.
HOKOHONKGUS TREE
The etymology of Hokohonkgus suggests a small waterfall associated with eels at a small hill, but it is the tree that holds sway over Sleepy Hollow. Trees are a power presence in The Legend and in the Hudson Valley. They not only shape the landscape but also draw in sensations of both sweetness and scariness. Snow covered and shaking, they appear as ghostlike entities to Ichabod Crane. The site (and sight) of the monstrous tulip tree, where the “unfortunate Major Andre” was caught in 1780, initiates the frightful journey of the schoolmaster. The grand Hokohonkgus reigned over all in the area until a storm brought it down in 1905. Today its pervasive ways reemerge from the layers of farms and suburbs. Westchester, even with almost one million people, is almost as wooded as it was in colonial days. An immense tulip tree again marks the spot where American Revolutionary “skinners” captured Andre. Rows of poplar trees, patched with skin-toned bark, stand as guardians of Sleepy Hollow cemetery today.
MORE SPOOKED STONES
An old colonial rule of thumb contended it took one man one year to clear one acre of land. The New Netherlands in the lower Hudson Valley, in spite of the dense trees and the groaning stones, proved most fertile. Westchester in the 1700s became the breadbasket for the colonies. Dutch, then English, plows would inevitably unearth Native spells and buried bones. More stories rose from the rocks around Sleepy Hollow.
Spook or Council Rock, near Gory Brook Road, is the site of the Weckquasgeek sleeping spell. Some Native people along the Mahicanituck jokingly referred to grave sites as “pumpkin patches.” Several other scary stones mark the Sleepy Hollow landscape. Tales abound at Spook, Balance, Widow and especially Raven Rock.
Spirits of Sleepy Hollow, 18
93 illustration. By George Boughton for Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.
Again, Spook Rock was the spot where the Weckquasgeek council cast the sleeping spell. Balance Rock, once near Tarrytown Lakes, fell when a medicine man accidentally fired a gun. The Thunder Beings cursed him with a jolt of lightning, leaving a print visible in the tumbled stone today. Widow Rock harbors a forlorn form wailing for her dead husband. She may be another twist on the White Lady of Raven Rock. This woeful woman offers a few stories, but she always moans before storms. The White Lady is the most frequently encountered ghost reported in Sleepy Hollow.
Distinguished folklorist Edgar M. Bacon places the Legend of the Star Maiden at Spook Rock, Sleepy Hollow. Others declare this story originates with the Iroquois, northern non-Algonquin speaking peoples. The many versions of this legend from Japan to Greece show a universal theme of love and loss to a star spirit. The Star Maiden tale also echoes elements found in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
LEGEND OF THE STAR MAIDEN
One night, a dozen dancing star-eyed sky maidens enchant a young brave returning from a deer hunt. He abandons the kill he was bringing back to his family to pounce like a panther upon the youngest star maiden. Against advice from the wise women, he makes the ethereal lass his wife. They soon have a starry child.
Later the star-sisters return to Sleepy Hollow. They scoop up their earthbound youngest for another sky dance. Thinking the dance just lasted for the night, the star-bride returns for her husband and child. She finds three years have passed. Motherless, the baby refused to eat and died. Her forlorn husband wandered off, never to be seen again.
Grief stricken, the star-wife transforms into a will-o’-the-wisp, an earthbound spirit of lights. Flickering, she seeks her husband around Spook Rock in Sleepy Hollow. The remaining star-sisters still dance in the night sky as the tiny constellation known as the Pleiades: “The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path” (TLSH, 12).
Chapter 3
TALES OF THE TAPPAN ZEE
In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee…they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed (TLSH, 1).
A three-mile-wide expanse in the Hudson River provides a gateway to the lore of the lower Hudson Valley. This sea sets the stage for the ghosts of Sleepy Hollow. It gives the Headless Horseman his mystifying backdrop. “Tappan Zee” is a unique partnering of an Algonquin and a Dutch word. “Tuppane” refers to the cold waters under the shadows of west bank cliffs called the Palisades. “Zee” is an archaic Dutch word for a small sea. The name brings two differing peoples together in one place. Various stories from that reach of the river reflect a clash of cultures. It foretells the surprise and mystery found in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Tales of the Tappan Zee often mix opposing forces, like mist and mountain, wind and tide, to create drama on the Hudson.
HENRY HUDSON AND THE SERVED HAND
When Henry Hudson sailed the Half Moon up a sprawling waterway he dubbed “the river of mountains,” he made several discoveries. First, this wide tidal river was not the Northwest Passage to the riches of Cathay that Hudson had been hired to route out by the Dutch East India Company. Second, the region looked bountiful. His mate and journalist, Robert Juet, scribed, “This is a very good Land to fall with, and a pleasant Land to see.” Further, Juet found “this River is full of fish.” Hudson and his crew of about twenty English and Dutch sailors expressed ambivalence about the indigenous people. Juet wrote, “The people of the Countrey came aboord us, making shew of love, gave us tabacco and Indian Wheat…but we durst not trust them.” He often repeated that refrain.
Mahicans greeting Henry Hudson, 1876. Wood print. Published by Harper's Monthly, April 1876. From the collection of the Highland Studio, Inc., Cold Spring, NY.
The people of that country—the Lenape, Raritan, Canarsie, Wappingers, Weckquasgeek, Esopus, Munsee and, of course, the Mahican—also perceived those who crossed the great salty waters with fearsome awe. The progress of what appeared to be a great canoe pulled by clouds drew curious Weckquasgeek people from their village, Wysquaqua, down to the banks of the Mahicanituck. Gazing out from what is now Dobbs Ferry (several miles south of Sleepy Hollow), they wondered if the hairy faces and pale skin meant they looked upon animals, sick men or spirits. Undaunted, they sensed an opportunity for trade.
Launching several canoes, they chanted a welcome and offered shellfish, deer meat, berries and beaver skins. They swapped with Hudson’s sailors for buttons, cloth, beads, knives and pots made of miraculously strong metals. Again Juet glowered, “We darest not trust them.” Apparently the ship’s mate wrote prophetically: Hudson ordered John Colman and a handful of men into the shallop boat to explore Newark Bay. They found a land “pleasant with Grasse and Flowers, and goodly Trees.” Unfortunately, a misunderstanding with the Raritan tribe left Colman dead with an arrow through the throat. The European explorers took two Native men from a trading party as captives to ensure they’d not be attacked again. Later, the pair surprised the crew by jumping into the river, swimming to shore and taunting back at the Half Moon in “scorne.”
Juet, however, reports in his very next sentence, “There wee found very loving people.” Farther upriver, near present-day Kingston, they enjoyed the hospitality of the Esopus Indians. Sharing a pipe of fine tobacco, the Native hosts served the ravenous Europeans wild pigeon and roasted dog. Hudson and Juet accepted gifts of pemmican venison. Shallow waters forced the Half Moon to turn back near Waterford, New York. The only riches they’d find would come from the lands Hudson claimed for the Netherlands.
Returning through the Hudson Highlands under the shadow of Donder-Berg, on the Tappan Zee, a gang of Munsee saw a chance to get at some riches for themselves. Sneaking up in a canoe, they boarded the Half Moon and swiped some of Juet’s red bandoliers and other sundries. Hudson’s master mate shot one of the thieves. Launching their shallop, the ship’s cook and a few other sailors began hotly pursuing the canoe. One Munsee slipped underwater. Grabbing the small Dutch boat at the bow, he tried flipping it over. Enraged, the “Cooke” drew his sword and sliced off the poor fellow’s hand. He sank under the ever-shifting Mahicanituck. The others dove out of the canoe and swam to shore. Juet got back his possessions at a deadly price.
Word spread of the dangerous ways of these strangers-who-cross-the-salty-waters-with-skin-like-snow-and-hair-on-their-faces-like-animals. Soon, the Half Moon found fierce Sint Sick warriors from Senasqua (Croton Point) and Weckquasgeek from Wysquaqua paddling toward them. Hudson and Juet ordered their “falcon,” or cannon, fired. They added a few rounds of musketry. The Europeans reported about a half-dozen “Savages” killed. Native accounts, however, told of over three times as many deaths, resulting from the strangers’ fire sticks.
The Donder-Berg illustration. Published by Harper's Monthly, April 1876. From the collection of the Highland Studio, Inc., Cold Spring, NY.
Surely, this strange tale of trade and death merited a retelling under the Hokohonkgus tree. Twenty years later, when Dutch settlers began arriving in the Hudson Valley, they heard stories of the 1609 encounter. When the Native peoples spoke of Europeans, they also had reason to end their story with “we darest not trust them!” Perhaps the memorable first encounter between European and Native American cultures along the Hudson River prompted the chieftain’s spell that Washington Irving mentions at the beginning of his Legend.
IMPS!
The deadly 1609 encounters along the Tappan Zee yielded eerie feelings about the cliffs and high hills bounding the region. Relentless tides, erratic winds and the foggy Highlands moved people, both Native and European, to sense something more than nature at work on that part of the river.
When rogue waves
swamped canoes and surprise storms sank sloops, people determined this was the supernatural at play. The Natives referred to river spirits as a kind of “Manitou.” Dutch sailors found a danger zone ranging from around Croton Point and Haverstraw Bay to the “worregat” or wind gate between Storm King Mountain and Breakneck Ridge in the Highlands above West Point. Who made the Protestant Dutch skippers on the Hudson hark back to a medieval Catholic practice of praying to Saint Nicholas for protection? ’Twas Dwerg, the “Heer of the Donder-Berg,” culprit imp of the Hudson River Highlands!
Long before the times of tractor-trailers, trains and steamships, sloops hauled on the Hudson. The great river’s whims required a sturdy Dutch-designed craft with a fixed bowsprit, a moveable keel board and three sails. The top one, the “skyscraper,” resembled a colonial tricorn cap. The sloop could deliver passengers and goods from New York to Albany, sometimes in just forty-eight hours. No ship, however, by any power entirely rules the river. Dutch sailors knew where to shorten sail and when to pray.
Sailors on the Hudson spoke the language of the river—Dutch—well into the 1800s. They took on runaway servants and slaves who found freedom by learning every cove and channel on the Hudson. Sloop skippers navigated to Albany by a series of fourteen reaches. Each one presented unique challenges. The toughest was Sail-Maker’s, followed by Martyr’s. They hit sloops with tricks and turns around the Tappan Zee, plaguing them through Highlands to Newburgh Bay. Sharp winds off Croton Point could shred your sails. Many skippers suffered this fate, forcing them ashore at Haverstraw to see the sailmaker.
Martyr’s Reach was worse. The Highlands Hills, the only part of the Appalachian Range crossed by a major river, force the mighty Hudson to bend at West Point. Skippers distracted with the tide and surface winds literally got sideswiped by gusts swooping down off those dangerously steep hills.
Legends and Lore of Sleepy Hollow and the Hudson Valley Page 4