Volume 17 , Issue 39

Walking With Sadie

Woof! Woof! The image on the left is a photo my human friend (R. L. Wagner) sent us this October, 2015, showing a view of Mt. Irving and snowy mountain peaks, reflections in the pond.

NW Okie has been on an on going research of Washington Irving, the writer, and his short story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." So that is where this week's OkieLegacy Ezine/Tabloid takes us this week ... on a journey back to the Hudson Valley near Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, New York with a look into Irving's life and surroundings from which he wrote.

Sleepy Hollow Records

It was in the New York Tribune, dated 6 January 1901, page 13, we find this news story: "Sleepy Hollow Records." The article reported on the Old Dutch Church at Tarrytown and how it had preserved valuable annals of early families.

We won't transcribe all the article here, but will pick bits and pieces that we found interesting.

In 1672 Frederick Philipse made his first purchase of land north of the Harlem. Twenty years later the manorial rights of the territory between the Harlem River and Pocantico Creek were confirmed to him by the British Crown. In those days manorial rights meant a great deal, including the rights of advowson, or the appointment of ministers of the Gospel, and the jurisdiction of Courts Baron and Leet. A lord of the manor in the seventeenth century was, in fact, a feudal potentate, so far as his domain extended. Established in these territorial privileges, Patroon Philipse, having been left a widower with several children, married Katrina Van Courtlandt, a daughter of the patrician order in which he had attained membership. The biographers seem to be of two minds as tot he religious proclivities of this first Lord of the Manor of Tarrytown. Some represent him as a pious and othordox member of the Reformed Church of Holland, as constituted by the Synod of Dordrecht. Others say he was of a somewhat indifferent tendency of thought, and one of his political enemies, of whom he had scores, accused him of being a Papist. The true founders of the Sleepy Hollow Church was his wife Katrina.

Less than two decades of the church's existence had passed - it was erected soon after 1680 - when, in 169, these records began to be punctually kept by Dirck Storm, the parish clerk.

Here is a list, obligingly modernized and anglicized by Mr. Ferris, of the names found in the interesting collection of brief family annals:

Asker, Ackerman, Anderson, Bunker, Brett, Browser, Conklin, Clearwater, Carson, Couenhoven (probably the original form of Conover, which is one of NW Okie's maternal ancestors on the Paris/Conover lineage), Cox, Chatterton, Davidson, De Witt, De Review, Daniels, De Ronde, Hobbs, Dusenbury, Dyckman, Emmons, Fitch, Foshea, Gilbert, Garretson, Gardiner, Guion, Hammond, Hendrickson, Heleker, Hyatt, Hoff, Hiscock, Hopper, Hutchins, Jacobs, Johns, King, Knapp, Lambert, Le Meyer, Lent, Lounsberry, Lawrence, Man, Marshall, Mattering, Mable, McDaniel, Myer, Miller, Montrose, Oakley, Odell, Palding, Post, Powell, De Pew, Sequa, Ryerson, Romer, Roselle, Sherwood, Schulman, See, Storm, Tompkins, Teal, Teller, Tice, Van Amber, Van Cortlandt, Van Dyck, Van Nostrand, Van Tassel, Van Wart, Van Wormer, Vermilyea, Waldron, Weller, White, Whitbeck, Wylie, Williams, Wilsea and Winter.

Good Night! Good Luck! Woof! Woof!
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