455 
PARK AND CRMETRRY 
LISTER MONUMENT, SLEEPY HOLLOW CEMETERY. 
contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted 
region ; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams 
and fancies infecting all the land.” He goes on to 
say that tales were told of dismal scenes and sounds 
seen and heard around the great tree where Andre 
was taken, which stands in the neighborhood ; and 
mention was made of the woman in white who 
haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock near the point 
where she is said to have perished long ago during a 
terrific snowstorm. But the chief part of the strange 
tales related to the favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, 
the headless horseman who patrolled the country and 
even went so far as to tether his steed nightly among 
the graves in the churchyard. 
That Irving counted all these thrilling narratives as 
merely legitimate “material” is proven by subsequent 
events. 
The present cemetery was incorporated in 1848 as 
the “Tarrytown Cemetery,” and it was not until 1864 
that the republication of a letter written by Irving 
in 1849 Lewis Gaylord Clark, then editor of the 
Knickerbocker Magazine, suggested to the trustees 
their exceptional but long-neglected opportunity to 
honor their highly favored ground with a name worthy 
of the site, its surroundings and its history, and of 
the distinguished author who suggested it, and whose 
remains rest within its classic confines. 
In that letter Irving speaks of the projected “rural 
cemetery” to be established “on the woody hills ad- 
jacent to Sleepy Hollow Church,” and “hopes it may 
succeed, as it will keep that beautiful and umbrageous 
neighborhood sacred from the anti-poetical and all- 
leveling axe. Besides, I trust that I shall one day 
lay my bones there.” He also says : “They are al- 
ready, I believe, aware of the blunder that has been 
made in naming it the ‘Tarrytown’ instead of the 
‘Sleepy Hollow’ Cemetery.’ The latter name would 
have been enough in itself to secure the patronage of 
all desirous of sleeping quietly in their graves.” 
These grounds contain what is known as Battle 
Hill, showing a redoubt thrown up by American 
