long-established Dutch communities.

The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of
supernatural stories in these parts, was doubtless owing to the
vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. 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. Several
of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's, and, as
usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful legends. Many
dismal tales were told about funeral trains, and mourning cries
and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the
unfortunate Major André was taken, and which stood in the
neighborhood. 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. 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.

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. A
gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of water,
bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at the
blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard,
where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that