Legends and Lore of Sleepy Hollow and the Hudson Valley

by Jonathan Kruk

  They slipped the rider off his mount. He waved them off and, as Paulding would later testify, “seemed to make a kind of laugh.” Finding himself in a pickle, Andre smiled.

  “My God, a man must do anything to get along!”

  Again, he reached into his pocket, producing for the Skinners a letter. He continued, “I am John Anderson, on a vital errand for General Benedict Arnold. See? I have a pass signed in his own hand.” Assuming these “bosslopers” could not read, he pointed to the signature.

  Intrigued by the gold watch, they led him off the road and down through the brush to a stream running by a great tulip tree. The trio searched “Anderson’s” pockets. They ordered him to remove his waistcoat, cravat, chemise and knee breeches. “Now the boots!”

  When the fruitless search exasperated everyone involved, Van Wart exclaimed he felt something in the bottom of the stockings. Paulding pulled them off and discovered a sheaf of folded papers.

  “I told you, those pertain to particular business with General Arnold, now please do not detain me any longer!”

  Major Andre believed these bumpkins could not read. He was two-thirds right. Paulding deciphered the documents. Recognizing a plan for an attack on West Point, he announced, “This man is a spy!”

  Andre insisted he was John Anderson, a merchant. He had received the documents from a man at Pines Bridge. Under protection from Arnold, he had to deliver the papers to Dobbs Ferry.

  Van Wart asked, “What will you give us to let you go? How about your horse, saddle and watch?”

  “And a hundred guineas!” added Williams.

  Andre hastily agreed, explaining he’d direct them to his contact in Kingsbridge, where they could go to collect the money.

  “Kingsbridge! That’ll bring Redcoats to get us! I thought you said you were with the Americans!”

  Paulding then leaped up: “We won’t let you go for ten thousand guineas!”

  They pinioned their prisoner’s arms behind his back, tied him, set him on the horse and called out to their card-playing sergeant, John Dean. They escorted John Anderson to nearby Reed’s Tavern, where Old Saw Mill Road now crosses the Saw Mill River Parkway. There the tavern keeper gave them some bread and milk. The Skinners decided to take their captive to an American outpost at Wright’s Mill near Armonk. Andre broke into a cold sweat. Despairing, the prisoner blurted, “I would to God you had blown my brains out when you stopped me!”

  Andre’s capture place, circa 1820. Historical Collections of the State of New York by John W. Barber and Henry Howe (1842). From the collection of the Highland Studio, Inc., Cold Spring, NY.

  ANDRE’S CAPTURE

  They found a friend of Benedict Arnold’s, Lieutenant Colonel John Jameson, on duty. He listened to the trio’s story and, at length, to John Anderson’s version. The papers clearly showed plans for an attack on West Point. Jameson believed he had found “a plot to ruin Arnold.” Misled by Andre’s Anderson act, Jameson sent his distinguished prisoner under escort to Benedict Arnold’s headquarters at the Robinson House, across from West Point in Garrison! The confused officer also dispatched a lone horse and rider with the papers found on Andre by the Skinners to George Washington, known to be traveling near Danbury, Connecticut.

  Later, at night, Major Benjamin Tallmadge, General Washington’s spymaster, arrived at Wright’s Mill. Jameson reported the “Anderson” incident. Tallmadge, aware of earlier British attempts to turn coats and conscious of Arnold’s contempt for Congress, sniffed out a conspiracy. Angered at both Jameson and the trio, who he believed were just ransom seekers, Tallmadge dispatched two messengers. One would intercept the party with Andre. The other would reach Washington with shocking news: “Major General Benedict Arnold is a traitor! We caught his collaborator, a British agent, with plans to weaken West Point for a British take over.”

  The determined messenger, in a ride rivaling Paul Revere’s, intercepted the Andre contingent just a half dozen miles from the safety of Arnold’s headquarters at the Robinson House. Tallmadge ordered his soldiers to take Andre to the isolated Gilbert House in present-day South Salem. He wanted his prisoner far from trolling Cow-Boys, Loyalist Rangers and Redcoats. The messenger seeking Washington missed the general’s party when they decided to travel via Fishkill Road to the north.

  Andre continued to insist he was John Anderson, a merchant tricked into doing Arnold’s dirty work. Tallmadge, as spymaster, rode to the Gilbert House to interview this “merchant.” Tallmadge observed Andre’s military-style boots, powdered hair and refined gait. “As soon as I saw Anderson,” Tallmadge noted, “especially after I saw him walk across the floor, I became impressed with the belief that he had been bred to bear arms.”

  Children gathered in the Gilbert House, wondering why the stranger looked melancholy. They apparently moved this man haunted by guilt to drop his false identity. Writing as Major John Andre, adjutant general, he crafted a rambling letter to his Excellency General George Washington. Mixing regret with hubris, Andre declared Benedict Arnold had deceived him. Acting as Arnold’s messenger, circumstance made Andre appear as a spy! What’s more, the brash major pointedly declared himself a very prominent person who’d fetch a high price from the British command. Treat me well, Andre warned, or American prisoners will suffer.

  Tallmadge ordered escorted Andre over the lonely roads of Upper Westchester and what’s now Putnam County. They’d ferry him across the Hudson from Garrison’s Landing for a safe trial in Tappan. Near Ma-ho-pac, while resting at the home of James Cox, Andre gazed into a cradle at his host’s daughter. The baby blessed the doomed man with a smile. Touched, the British officer cooed, “Happy childhood! We know its peace but once.”

  Andre made several sketches along the way. One shows Joshua Hett Smith rowing him across the Hudson following his clandestine meeting at Long Clove Mountain with Benedict Arnold. Another, a self-portrait, reveals a doomed man, haunted by the twists his fate had taken.

  ARNOLD’S PAWN

  When the doomed Major Andre arrived at West Point headquarters in Garrison in the Highlands, wily Arnold, the hero of Quebec, Valcour Island and especially Saratoga, had already escaped. Earlier, on the morning of September 25, Tallmadge’s messenger from South Salem had arrived at Robinson House. He gave Arnold the letter of Andre’s capture. Slipping into cool Benedict for the aides present, the careful conspirator quipped about the call of duty and slipped off. Gripping his wife, Peggy, in the drawing room, he gave the dreaded news. “They have Andre!” Scribbling a note to Washington exonerating his wife and aides, Arnold took flight.

  Commandeering a military boat to travel downriver, Arnold waved a white truce flag to The Vulture still anchored off Dobbs Ferry. Upon boarding, he received about £20,000 sterling and a brigadier general’s star and became a traitor to the cause he once loved.

  Benedict Arnold failed to show up at his headquarters in Garrison to meet his commander in chief. This gave George Washington “vague misgivings.” The commander in chief then inspected the fortifications and discovered them in rough shape. Washington then received shocking news. The messenger arrived with evidence of Arnold’s plot to give the British West Point. General Washington, before his junior officers, appeared to take the news of the betrayal rather calmly. Next he steadfastly faced a hysterical Peggy performing histrionics to buy her husband more time to escape. Washington ordered Alexander Hamilton to ride with a couple of men to intercept Arnold. They were too late.

  Later over dinner, Washington confided to his trusted officers, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Knox and the Marquis de Lafayette, “Arnold is a traitor flown now to the British. Whom now can we trust?” Tears streamed down the commander in chief’s cheeks.

  Fourteen American generals sat to judge the strange case of Major John Andre. During the proceedings, Andre remained captive in the Mabie House (now the Old 76 House) in Tappan, New York. Many of the younger officers, Hamilton and Lafayette among them, fell under Andre’s charming melancholy spell. They pleaded for an
exchange, arguing that the honorable Andre had fallen into Arnold’s trap. Washington agreed to an exchange but only for betraying Benedict.

  General Sir Henry Clinton also appreciated his aide-de-camp’s charm and honorable service. Benedict Arnold, however, was now his grand prize.

  Self-portrait, October 1, 1780, ink on paper. By Major John Andre. Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Ebenezer Baldwin, B.A., 1808.

  Clinton knew his superiors in England wanted to keep this catch at all costs. Alas, for poor Andre, there would be no trade, just a hanging.

  George Washington informally asked the tribunal, chaired by the steely General Nathanael Greene, to be mindful of the British treatment of Captain Nathan Hale. Caught spying in the guise of schoolmaster, the twenty-one-year-old Patriot received no trial. The day after his capture, near Dove’s Tavern in New York City, Hale suffered the hangman’s noose. Washington, to be sure, avoided the beguiling British officer now gallantly facing the gallows for Arnold’s crime.

  The American tribunal permitted Andre’s artful proclamation of innocence. His complicity, he stated, came while doing his duty. “I had been made into Arnold’s pawn!” The tribunal accepted this. Nevertheless, they determined Major John Andre, caught out of uniform with incriminating papers, was a spy. Therefore he shall hang.

  “I AM NOT TO DIE ON A GIBBET”

  John Andre loathed the method of execution. He wrote to Washington, begging, “I am not to die on a gibbet.” Still, he accepted his fate manfully. He bravely told visitors, from his own orderly to Alexander Hamilton, to remain composed or step outside to avoid a shameful show of emotion.

  When his final day came on October 2, 1780, a ballad of the day would later lament that John Andre “looked both meek and mild.” When Colonel Alexander Scammel, the officer in charge, demurely asked his prisoner, “Are you ready?” Andre, once again in his splendid scarlet uniform, answered with a hint of hubris, “Certainly, Colonel.”

  Two American captains arrived at the Mabie House to usher this unique prisoner to the execution grounds at Old Tappan, New Jersey. Hundreds thronged the road to witness Major John Andre’s death. General John Glover noted an odd smile parting Andre’s lips as his two escorts locked arms to walk him to the gallows. Giving nods and courtly bows to the gathered generals from his tribunal, even taking Major Benjamin Tallmadge’s hand, Andre moved the crowd to tears. He blanched before the sight of the gallows, wondering, “Must I die this way?”

  Before mounting the gallows platform, Andre answered his own question in a bold voice. “It will be but a momentary pang.” He doffed his hat and placed it on his coffin. A witness observed Andre “had long beautiful hair which agreeable to fashion was wound with a black cloth and hung down his back.”

  Scammel asked if he had anything to say. Andre took a few deliberate steps forward. He stated: “I have nothing more than this. That I would have you gentlemen bear me witness that I die a brave man.”

  Smeared with black grease, the executioner, an anxious Cow-Boy named Strickland from the notorious Claudius Smith gang, nervously shook the noose. Muttering to keep his black hands off, Andre swiped the rope from the man. He put it around his own neck, adjusting it behind the right ear to make for a clean job. Andre produced the handkerchiefs needed to secure his arms and cover his eyes.

  Some say Andre found his fate through his own succession of errors. Others argued he was a victim of Arnold’s guile. His journey to the gallows may have been thwarted if he had but taken other steps. Pointedly, Andre did not shake hands with any of his three captors. What options could have flashed through his mind in this moment before death? “Why didn’t I just show them my pass from Arnold?” “Why did I not push by those Skinners?” “Why did I agree to take Arnold’s plans?” “Why did I remove my uniform?” “Will they remember me with kindness?” “Hang Benedict Arnold!” Alas, we shall never know.

  The muffled drums rolled. Strickland found enough courage to shimmy up the gallows pole to set the other end of Andre’s noose. The crowd wailed and cried, “For pity sake, no!” Would Washington ride in with a pardon? He pointedly stayed away.

  Scammel lowered his sword; Strickland took the order. He cracked a whip over the two horses attached to the execution cart. They pulled out the support under Andre’s feet. The rope gave a “tremendous swing.” A profound stillness quieted the crowd.

  A tearful Major Tallmadge, along with all those witnessing Andre’s death, felt that “when I saw him swinging under the gibbet, it seemed for a time as if I could not support it.” Old Tallmadge admitted years later he could not read an account of poor Andre “without shedding tears of sorrow.”

  Dr. James Thatcher noted in his extensive journal, “The spot was consecrated with tears by the thousands…Could Arnold have been suspended on the gibbet erected for Andre, not a tear or a sigh would have been produced, but exultation and joy would have been visible on every countenance”

  INTERMENT

  Major John Andre’s body was cut down and viewed by a weeping mob. Scammel saw to the burial detail, while Tallmadge, Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette attended. They marked their companion in arms’ grave with only a stack of stones. A tombstone would be an affront to the new nation.

  A strange woman in a calico dress, with loose hair and herbs under her apron strings, however, appeared to leave a kind of memorial. She planted a peach pit over the grave. But a local tale claims the peach came from another source. A few miles from Sleepy Hollow, Andre, feeling safe, had paused at the home of Staats Hammond, a Quaker from Chappaqua. His son, David, and daughter, Sally, gawked at the handsome visitor in a cap, cloak and fine military boots. Andre asked for a cup of well water. Sally obliged. Grateful, Andre smiled and gave her a sixpence. Feeling perhaps overcompensated, Sally gave the gentleman a peach. Some believe Andre carried its pit with him to the execution as a reminder of the small act of kindness.

  The unfortunate death of Major Andre, 1783 copy of engraving. By John Goldar, National Archives, College Park, Maryland.

  Forty years later, Great Britain sent a fine vessel, the Phaeton, with a stately sarcophagus to collect the compatriot’s remains. A large group of locals gathered, emoting for “poor Andre” and fretting that the grave had been robbed. When the British contingent appeared for a tour of “Andre’s prison room” at Mabie’s Tavern, locals took drinks and warning: “Any display of affection for Andre would insult the memory of George Washington.” Still they carefully exhumed the body with some ceremony and plenty of clamor. They found all the bones intact, ready for a proper reinterment at Westminster Abbey in London. Curiously, the roots from a peach tree completely engulfed the skull.

  ANDRE’S TREE

  Another hero’s marker stands on the battlefield in Saratoga. It’s a peculiar statue of a boot on a stone pedestal, with the inscription: “In memory of the most brilliant soldier of the Continental army, who was desperately wounded on this spot, winning for his countrymen the decisive battle of the American Revolution, and for himself the rank of Major General.”

  The tribute acknowledges the extraordinary service of Benedict Arnold. People around Sleepy Hollow, however, held only the memory of Arnold’s betrayal. Fighting for the British, Arnold won battles at Richmond, Virginia, and New London, Connecticut, but he never received the trust and respect he craved. He tried to succeed in the military, in trade and land speculation. Arnold’s efforts ended with lawsuits, duels and financial losses. He died in England of dropsy in June 1801.

  When word of Arnold’s death reached the lower Hudson Valley, cheers broke forth wildly. Patrons poured out of Van Tassel’s tavern and ran whooping down the Post Road in a race to ring the Old Dutch Church in celebration of the news.

  The skies suddenly filled with dark clouds. The moment the Sleepy Hollow gang rang the bell, the spirits seemed to respond in kind. A solitary jolt of lightning shot down and struck off a branch from an ancient tulip tree. The limb fell from the tree where Andre was captured twen
ty years earlier. Huzzah, they cried, all for the death of Arnold. They then gave a louder cheer for poor John Andre.

  “WHAT PARTY ARE YOU FROM?”

  Cheers for Andre in the dawning nineteenth century gave rise to reports of his ghostly presence near the “Capture Spot” beneath the old tulip tree. Occasionally, early morning travelers along Andre’s route on Old Albany Post Road in the Sleepy Hollow detected the sound of muffled hooves of a rider at a hurried pace. The slower travelers move right to let the faster rider pass them by. They hear the approaching horse whinny. The rider gasps frightfully and dashes by unseen. An unearthly chill clings to the air and bodies as Andre’s ghost passes. The real horror, however, follows. A piteous wailing, or as Washington Irving describes it “a doleful lamentation,” emanates from around a stream known as Andre’s Brook. This is the place where the Skinners stripped Andre to find the incriminating plans for West Point. The forlorn spirit tries again to slip by the Skinners to avoid the noose. Thus he moans and shrieks. A few declare Andre’s ghost wails, “Why did they hang me and not Arnold?”

  By midcentury, when the train began hauling milk to New York City, dairymen learned how to spare themselves the cries Andre dared not utter at his execution. They agreed on the way to stop Andre’s spirit from uttering his lamentation. One must use the words Skinner John Paulding used to catch the disguised British major, calling out, “What party are you from?” This phrase silences Andre’s spirit. The icy sensation then dissipates, though some insist a faint scent of peach lingers in the air as the ghost vanishes.

  An air of controversy surrounding Major John Andre’s fate remains to this day in Sleepy Hollow and environs. It took local people decades before agreeing to raise a monument. It acknowledges not only his captors but Andre too. Was Andre an imprudent victim of Benedict Arnold’s conspiracy or a determined British Loyalist? Apparently, only his ghost knows the answer.