As we proceed toward the land of enchantment the surroundings seem to take on a more mysterious air. Sounds that awhile before meant nothing more than the wind in the trees now begin to make one think of the rush of galloping cowboys or Hessians on mischief bent; or, if perchance we catch through the gathering dusk a glint of white on the river below, may it not be that Flying Dutchman who, tired of the narrow bounds of the Tappan Zee, is trying to steal out to the open ocean while the constable sleeps, but the cause of such speculation is gone almost before the speculation itself takes shape. However, the abode wherein so many of these marvels were clothed in becoming language is close at hand—Sunnyside. No better description of the place can be had than the artist's own: "About five-and-twenty miles from the ancient and renowned city of Manhattan ... stands a little, old-fashioned stone mansion, all made up of gable-ends, and as full of angles and corners as an old cocked hat.... Though but of small dimensions, yet, like many small people, it is of mighty spirit and values itself greatly on its antiquity.... Its origin in truth dates back in that remote region commonly called the fabulous age, in which vulgar fact becomes mystified and tinted up with delectable fiction.... The seat of empire now came into the possession of Wolfert Acker, one of the privy counsellors of Peter Stuyvesant.... During the dark and troublous times of the Revolutionary War it was the keep or stronghold of Jacob Van Tassel, a valiant Dutchman.... Years and years passed over the time honored little mansion. The honeysuckle and the sweet briar crept up its walls; the wren and the phœbe bird built under its eaves.... Such was the state of the Roost many years since, at the time when Diedrich Knickerbocker came into this neighborhood.... Mementoes of the sojourn of Diedrich Knickerbocker are still cherished at the Roost. His elbow chair and antique writing desk maintain their place in the room he occupied, and his old cocked hat still hangs on a peg against the wall."

TARRYTOWN.

From here to Tarrytown is but a little way. Tarwetown, "wheat-town." It is odd that two names so dissimilar in sound as this and Greenburgh, and both of Dutch origin, should mean the same thing. The Indian village here was Alipconck, "the place of elms." Like all this region the place is full of the romance which Irving created, and of stirring incidents of Colonial and Revolutionary days. Chief among these are the remains of the Philipse domain, the capture of André and the legend of Sleepy Hollow, into which the old Dutch Church has been woven. The church yard contains some beautiful monuments to the dead.

It is an odd coincidence that the Whitewood tree known as Major André's tree, near which the capture was effected, was struck by lightning the day that news was received at Tarrytown of Arnold's death. A monument now standing on the edge of the road has taken the place of the tree. We all know how the Skinners, Paulding, Van Wart and Williams made this capture which disclosed the treachery of Arnold. It was indeed a fortunate combination of circumstances that led these three incorruptible men to the right spot at the right moment.

How many times did the death knell of independence seem on the point of being tolled, and how many times did the god of chance throw his weight into the ascending scale of the Colonists. But for a lapse of memory, the attempt of the British in the Summer of 1777 to capture the Hudson Valley and separate New England from her sisters might have been as successful as it proved disastrous. Lord George Germain sent Burgoyne peremptory instructions to proceed down the Hudson, and the instructions to Howe to move north to meet him were equally peremptory, but the latter were pigeonholed and forgotten for several weeks, and when remembered it was too late. Washington had decoyed Howe to Pennsylvania, and Burgoyne, lacking the expected support from the south, was defeated by the farmers.

Pocantico, "a run between two hills," the Dutch called it Sleepy Haven Kill, hence Sleepy Hollow. "Far in the foldings of the hills winds this wizard stream," writes the grand sachem of all the wizards, who wove the romance of the headless horseman and the luckless schoolmaster so tightly about the spot that they are to-day part and parcel of it. The bridge over which the scared pedagogue scurried was some rods further up the stream than is the present crossing, for in those days the Post Road ran along the north side of the church, and the entrance was originally on that side of the building, while now it is on the western end which faces the present road.

The name Frederick Philipse was originally written Vreedryk, or Vrederyck, Felypsen, the former meaning "rich in peace," indicating, we presume, the difference between his peaceful occupation of breaking into the new wilderness and that of his ancestors in Bohemia who, being persecuted for their religious opinions, fled to Holland, from whence Frederick emigrated to New Amsterdam, some time before 1653, becoming a successful merchant, and later a patroon. Sen, meaning son in Dutch, Felypsen meant the son of Felyp, Frederick the son of Philip. On the west bank of the Pocantico Philipse built his first manorial residence, called Castle Philipse on account of its strength and armament, it not only being loopholed for musketry, as was common in those days, but was also defended by several small cannon. All these evidences of the strenuous days of old have been covered by unsightly clapboards, and the place as it stands now looks as though it might have seen better days, but gives no hint of its former important station. It is related that in 1756 a Virginia colonel named Washington called here to pay his respects to the beautiful Mary Philipse, but the lady saw nothing attractive in the tall, ungainly countryman. In 1784, when the state parcelled out the confiscated lands of Philipse, this part fell into the hands of Gerard C. Beekman, whose wife was Cornelia Van Cortlandt, a connection of the Philipse family. An interesting incident connects this place with the André matter. Some time before his capture, John Webb, one of Washington's aides, left a valise containing a new uniform with Mrs. Beekman, asking that it be delivered only on a written order. Some two weeks later Joshua Het Smith, whose loyalty was at that time regarded doubtful, called and asked for Lieutenant Webb's valise. Mrs. Beekman disliked the man, and refused to deliver it without the order, which Smith could not produce, and he rode away much disappointed. André was concealed in his house at this very time, and the uniform was wanted to help him through the American lines. Thus Mrs. Beekman forged the second link in the chain leading to the André capture.

The little old Dutch church is believed to be the oldest church edifice now standing in the State. It was built in 1699 by Frederick Philipse. Irving says of it: "The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll surrounded by locust trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent whitewashed walls shine modestly forth like Christian purity beaming through the shades of retirement."

"To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there, at least, the dead might rest in peace," and there Irving himself rests in peace with a plain white stone at his head which modestly tells that

WASHINGTON