The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Tarrytown to the Church Bridge

The story opens around 1790 in a quiet valley near Tarrytown, New York, known as Sleepy Hollow and famous for strange tales and superstitions. One of its haunts is Raven Rock, where Irving says a woman in white was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm. Raven Rock, an outcrop in today's Rockefeller State Park Preserve, is named in the tale. The pin marks the Preserve, not the rock itself.

Location precision: The tale names Raven Rock but gives no map; the pin marks Rockefeller State Park Preserve, which holds it.

Visitor guidance: The Preserve is open year-round from sunrise to sunset.

On an autumn evening Ichabod, a Connecticut schoolteacher, rides a borrowed horse to a quilting party at the Van Tassel farm. He eats well, courts Katrina Van Tassel, the farmer's only daughter, and hears the guests swap ghost stories, above all that of the Headless Horseman. Philipsburg Manor House in Sleepy Hollow may have been the model for the Van Tassel farmhouse. It is now a museum run by Historic Hudson Valley.

Location precision: Irving does not name the real farm; Philipsburg Manor House is only one suggested model.

Visitor guidance: Open as a museum run by Historic Hudson Valley.

Leaving the party unhappy, Ichabod rides home through the dark, his mind full of ghost stories. He reaches a gloomy glen by a bridge, the spot where British Major André was captured in the Revolution and thought to be haunted by his ghost. Patriot's Park in Sleepy Hollow marks the real capture: on 24 September 1780 three militiamen stopped André, disguised in civilian clothing, along the Albany Post Road through Tarrytown.

Location precision: The tale describes a glen and bridge near the capture site; the pin marks Patriot's Park, not the exact glen.

Visitor guidance: Patriot's Park is in Sleepy Hollow, near the old Albany Post Road.

The cloaked rider appears, and Ichabod, terrified, races toward the bridge by the old village church, believing the ghost cannot cross it. Next morning, all anyone finds near the church bridge is his hat and a smashed pumpkin. Irving gave the church prominent mention in his 1820 story. The Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow is a 17th-century stone building on Albany Post Road.

Visitor guidance: The church and its burying ground stand on Albany Post Road in Sleepy Hollow.

Visitors have long linked the rustic bridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to the bridge in Irving's tale, though it is a much later addition to the landscape. It crosses a Pocantico River ravine near a small waterfall. Irving co-founded the cemetery and is buried there. The pin marks the cemetery's bridge, which is a pleasant place to finish the route.

Location precision: The bridge was built long after the story, so it is a visitor tradition, not Irving's bridge.

Visitor guidance: The bridge is inside the cemetery grounds, a working burial ground.