f the Revolution
and many striking incidents mark its early history. In 1777 Vaughan's
troops landed here on their way to attack Fort Montgomery, and here a
party of Americans, under Major Hunt, surprised a number of British
refugees while playing cards at the Van Tassel tavern. The major
completely "turned the cards" upon them by rushing in with brandished
stick, which he brought down with emphasis upon the table, remarking
with genuine American brevity, "Gentlemen, clubs are trumps." Here,
too, according to Irving, arose the two great orders of chivalry, the
"Cow Boys" and "Skinners." The former fought, or rather marauded under
the American, the latter under the British banner; the former were
known as "Highlanders," the latter as the "Lower-Party." In the zeal
of service both were apt to make blunders, and confound the property
of friend and foe. "Neither of them, in the heat and hurry of a foray,
had time to ascertain the politics of a horse or cow which they were
driving off into captivity, nor when they wrung the neck of a rooster
did they trouble their heads whether he crowed for Congress or King
George."

It was also a genial, reposeful country for the faithful historian,
Diedrich Knickerbocker; and here he picked up many of those legends
which were given by him to the world. One of these was the legend
connected with the old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow. "A drowsy,
dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very
atmosphere. Some say the place was bewitched by a high German doctor
during the early days of the settlement; others that an old Indian
chief, the wizard of his tribe, held his pow-wows there before
Hendrick Hudson's discovery of the river. The dominant spirit,
however, that haunts this enchanted region, is the apparition of
a figure on horse-back, without a head, said to be the ghost of a
Hessian trooper, and was known at all the country firesides as the
'Headless horseman' of Sleepy Hollow."

* * *

O waters of Pocantico!
Wild rivulet of wood and glen!
May thy glad laughter, sweet and low,
Long, long outlive the sighs of men.

_S. H. Thayer._

* * *

[Illustration: SLEEPY HOLLOW CHURCH.]

=Sleepy Hollow.=--The Old Dutch Church, the oldest on the Hudson, is
about one-half mile north from Tarrytown.

It was built by "Frederick Filipse and his wife Katrina Van Cortland
in 1690." The material is partly of stone and partly of brick brought
fr