dimensions, yet, like many small people, it is of mighty spirit and
values itself greatly on its antiquity.... Its origin in truth dates
back in that remote region commonly called the fabulous age, in which
vulgar fact becomes mystified and tinted up with delectable
fiction.... The seat of empire now came into the possession of Wolfert
Acker, one of the privy counsellors of Peter Stuyvesant.... During the
dark and troublous times of the Revolutionary War it was the keep or
stronghold of Jacob Van Tassel, a valiant Dutchman.... Years and years
passed over the time honored little mansion. The honeysuckle and the
sweet briar crept up its walls; the wren and the phoebe bird built
under its eaves.... Such was the state of the Roost many years since,
at the time when Diedrich Knickerbocker came into this neighborhood....
Mementoes of the sojourn of Diedrich Knickerbocker are still
cherished at the Roost. His elbow chair and antique writing desk
maintain their place in the room he occupied, and his old cocked hat
still hangs on a peg against the wall."

[Sidenote: _TARRYTOWN._]

From here to Tarrytown is but a little way. Tarwetown, "wheat-town."
It is odd that two names so dissimilar in sound as this and
Greenburgh, and both of Dutch origin, should mean the same thing. The
Indian village here was Alipconck, "the place of elms." Like all this
region the place is full of the romance which Irving created, and of
stirring incidents of Colonial and Revolutionary days. Chief among
these are the remains of the Philipse domain, the capture of Andre and
the legend of Sleepy Hollow, into which the old Dutch Church has been
woven. The church yard contains some beautiful monuments to the dead.

It is an odd coincidence that the Whitewood tree known as Major
Andre's tree, near which the capture was effected, was struck by
lightning the day that news was received at Tarrytown of Arnold's
death. A monument now standing on the edge of the road has taken the
place of the tree. We all know how the Skinners, Paulding, Van Wart
and Williams made this capture which disclosed the treachery of
Arnold. It was indeed a fortunate combination of circumstances that
led these three incorruptible men to the right spot at the right
moment.

How many times did the death knell of independence seem on the point
of being tolled, and how many times did the god of chance throw his
weight into the ascending scale of the Colonists. But for a lapse of
memory,