“The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal.”
When Washington Irving published “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” he cleverly chose a well-known British publisher, John Murray, despite being an American himself. This credentialing, paired with the captivating nature of the tale, helped skyrocket both Irving’s popularity and the reputation of American writing more broadly. The story was quickly picked up by broad audiences of all ages and never went out of print.
Now imagine being the fellow named Ichabod Crane, in real life, while all this breathless storytelling of a gangly, lovelorn schoolmaster by that very name was gaining traction on both sides of the Atlantic.
Such a fellow existed! He and Irving met while Crane was stationed at Fort Pike during the War of 1812. It seems that Irving borrowed only the man’s fantastic name for the tale and not his personality or physical traits, but the real Mr. Crane was apparently none too pleased all the same.
Irving stitched together colorful details from all over in patching together this charmingly frightful tale. From elements of Dutch folklore, plotlines from friend Sir Walter Scott’s “The Chase,” which itself was based on a translation of the German poem “The Wild Huntsman,” to historical happenings of the Hudson Valley region, and the very character of Ichabod Crane, who was modeled after a Kinderhook schoolmaster named Jesse Merwin, whom he met while visiting the area in 1809.
Mr. Merwin reportedly did not mind the association.
Please enjoy…
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