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Washington Irving
Washington Irving
Born	April 3, 1783(1783-04-03) New York, New York, United States
Died	November 28, 1859 (aged 76) Sunnyside, New York, United States
Occupation	Short story writer, essayist, biographer, magazine editor, diplomat
Literary movement	Romanticism
Signature

Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.. His historical works include biographies of George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith and Muhammad, and several histories of 15th-century Spain dealing with subjects such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra. Irving also served as the U.S. minister to Spain from 1842 to 1846.

He made his literary debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the Morning Chronicle, written under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. After moving to England for the family business in 1815, he achieved international fame with the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in 1819. He continued to publish regularly — and almost always successfully — throughout his life, and completed a five-volume biography of George Washington just eight months before his death, at age 76, in Tarrytown, New York.

Irving, along with James Fenimore Cooper, was the first American writer to earn acclaim in Europe, and Irving encouraged American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Edgar Allan Poe. Irving was also admired by some European writers, including Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Thomas Campbell, Francis Jeffrey, and Charles Dickens. As America's first genuine internationally best-selling author, Irving advocated for writing as a legitimate profession, and argued for stronger laws to protect American writers from copyright infringement.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early years

Washington Irving's parents were William Irving, Sr., originally of Shapinsay, Orkney, and Sarah (née Sanders), Scottish-English immigrants. They married in 1761 while William was serving as a petty officer in the British Navy. They had eleven children, eight of which survived to adulthood. Their first two sons, each named William, died in infancy, as did their fourth child, John. Their surviving children were: William, Jr. (1766), Ann (1770), Peter (1772), Catherine (1774), Ebenezer (1776), John Treat (1778), and Sarah (1780).^[1]

The Irving family was settled in Manhattan, New York City as part of the city's small vibrant merchant class when Washington Irving was born on April 3, 1783^[1] the same week city residents learned of the British ceasefire that ended the American Revolution. Consequently, Irving’s mother named him after the hero of the revolution, George Washington.^[2] At age six, with the help of a nanny, Irving met his namesake, who was then living in New York after his inauguration as president in 1789. The president blessed young Irving,^[3] an encounter Irving later commemorated in a small watercolor painting, which still hangs in his home today.^[4] Several of Washington Irving's older brothers became active New York merchants, and they encouraged their younger brother's literary aspirations, often supporting him financially as he pursued his writing career.

An uninterested student, Irving preferred adventure stories and drama and, by age fourteen, was regularly sneaking out of class in the evenings to attend the theater.^[5] The 1798 outbreak of yellow fever in Manhattan prompted his family to send him to healthier climes upriver, and Irving was dispatched to stay with his friend James Kirke Paulding in Tarrytown, New York. It was in Tarrytown that Irving became familiar with the nearby town of Sleepy Hollow, with its quaint Dutch customs and local ghost stories.^[6] Irving made several other trips up the Hudson as a teenager, including an extended visit to Johnstown, New York, where he passed through the Catskill mountain region, the setting for "Rip Van Winkle". "[O]f all the scenery of the Hudson," Irving wrote later, "the Kaatskill Mountains had the most witching effect on my boyish imagination."^[7]

The nineteen year old Irving began writing letters to The Morning Chronicle in 1802, submitting commentaries on New York's social and theater scene under the name of Jonathan Oldstyle. The name, which purposely evoked the writer's Federalist leanings,^[8] was the first of many pseudonyms Irving would employ throughout his career. The letters brought Irving some early fame and moderate notoriety. Aaron Burr, a co-publisher of the Chronicle, was impressed enough to send clippings of the Oldstyle pieces to his daughter, Theodosia, while writer Charles Brockden Brown made a trip to New York to recruit Oldstyle for a literary magazine he was editing in Philadelphia.^[9]

Concerned for his health, Irving's brothers financed an extended tour of Europe from 1804 to 1806. Irving bypassed most of the sites and locations considered essential for the development of an upwardly-mobile young man, to the dismay of his brother William. William wrote that, though he was pleased his brother's health was improving, he did not like the choice to "gallop through Italy... leaving Florence on your left and Venice on your right".^[10] Instead, Irving honed the social and conversational skills that would later make him one of the world's most in-demand guests.^[11] "I endeavor to take things as they come with cheerfulness," Irving wrote, "and when I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste to suit my dinner."^[12] While visiting Rome in 1805, Irving struck up a friendship with the American painter Washington Allston,^[10] and nearly allowed himself to be persuaded into following Allston into a career as a painter. "My lot in life, however," Irving said later, "was differently cast."^[13]

[edit] First major writings

A younger Washington Irving

Irving returned from Europe to study law with his legal mentor, Judge Josiah Ogden Hoffman, in New York City. By his own admission, he was not a good student, and barely passed the bar in 1806.^[14] Irving began actively socializing with a group of literate young men he dubbed "The Lads of Kilkenny".^[15] Collaborating with his brother William and fellow Lad James Kirke Paulding, Irving created the literary magazine Salmagundi in January 1807. Writing under various pseudonyms, such as William Wizard and Launcelot Langstaff, Irving lampooned New York culture and politics in a manner similar to today's Mad magazine.^[16] Salmagundi was a moderate success, spreading Irving's name and reputation beyond New York. In its seventeenth issue, dated November 11, 1807, Irving affixed the nickname "Gotham" — an Anglo-Saxon word meaning "Goat's Town" — to New York City.^[17]

In late 1809, while mourning the death of his seventeen year old fiancée Matilda Hoffman, Irving completed work on his first major book, A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809), a satire on self-important local history and contemporary politics. Prior to its publication, Irving started a hoax akin to today's viral marketing campaigns; he placed a series of missing person adverts in New York newspapers seeking information on Diedrich Knickerbocker, a crusty Dutch historian who had allegedly gone missing from his hotel in New York City. As part of the ruse, Irving placed a notice — allegedly from the hotel's proprietor — informing readers that if Mr. Knickerbocker failed to return to the hotel to pay his bill, he would publish a manuscript Knickerbocker had left behind.^[18]

Unsuspecting readers followed the story of Knickerbocker and his manuscript with interest, and some New York city officials were concerned enough about the missing historian that they considered offering a reward for his safe return. Riding the wave of public interest he had created with his hoax, Irving — adopting the pseudonym of his Dutch historian — published A History of New York on December 6, 1809, to immediate critical and popular success.^[19] "It took with the public," Irving remarked, "and gave me celebrity, as an original work was something remarkable and uncommon in America."^[20] Today, the surname of Diedrich Knickerbocker, the fictional narrator of this and other Irving works, has become a nickname for Manhattan residents in general.^[21]

After the success of A History of New York, Irving searched for a job and eventually became an editor of Analectic magazine, where he wrote biographies of naval heroes like James Lawrence and Oliver Perry.^[22] He was also among the first magazine editors to reprint Francis Scott Key's poem "Defense of Fort McHenry", which would later be immortalized as "The Star-Spangled Banner", the national anthem of the United States.^[23]

Like many merchants and New Yorkers, Irving originally opposed the War of 1812, but the British attack on Washington, D.C. in 1814 convinced him to enlist.^[24] He served on the staff of Daniel Tompkins, governor of New York and commander of the New York State Militia. Apart from a reconnaissance mission in the Great Lakes region, he saw no real action.^[25] The war was disastrous for many American merchants, including Irving's family, and in mid-1815 he left for England to attempt to salvage the family trading company. He remained in Europe for the next seventeen years.^[26]

[edit] Life in Europe

[edit] The Sketch Book

The front page of The Sketch Book (1819)

Irving spent the next two years trying to bail out the family firm financially but was eventually forced to declare bankruptcy.^[27] With no job prospects, Irving continued writing throughout 1817 and 1818. In the summer of 1817, he visited the home of novelist Walter Scott, marking the beginning of a lifelong personal and professional friendship for both men.^[28] Irving continued writing prolifically — the short story "Rip Van Winkle" was written overnight while staying with his sister Sarah and her husband, Henry van Wart in Birmingham, England, a place that also inspired some of his other works.^[29] In October 1818, Irving's brother William secured for Irving a post as chief clerk to the United States navy, and urged him to return home.^[30] Irving, however, turned the offer down, opting to stay in England to pursue a writing career.^[31]

In the spring of 1819, Irving sent to his brother Ebenezer in New York a set of essays that he asked be published as The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. The first installment, containing "Rip Van Winkle," was an enormous success, and the rest of the work, published in seven installments in the United States and England throughout 1819 and 1820 ("The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" would appear in the sixth issue), would be equally as successful.^[32]

Like many successful authors of this era, Irving struggled against literary bootleggers.^[33] While in England, his sketches were published in book form by British publishers without his permission, an entirely legal practice as there were no clear international copyright laws. Seeking an English publisher to protect his copyright, Irving appealed to Walter Scott for help. Scott referred Irving to his own publisher, London powerhouse John Murray, who agreed to take on The Sketch Book.^[34] From then on, Irving would publish concurrently in the United States and England to protect his copyright, with Murray being his English publisher of choice.^[35]

Irving's reputation soared, and for the next two years, he led an active social life in Paris and England, where he was often feted as an anomaly of literature: an upstart American who dared to write English well.^[36]

[edit] Bracebridge Hall and Tales of a Traveller

Irving was anxious to follow up on the success of The Sketch Book, and traveled to the continent in search of new material, reading widely in Dutch and German folk tales. His next book, Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists, A Medley (the location was based loosely on Aston Hall near his sister's home in Birmingham) was published in 1822, and was well-received by readers and critics.^[37]

Struggling with writer's block, Irving traveled to Germany, settling in Dresden in the winter of 1822. Here he dazzled the royal family and attached himself to Mrs. Amelia Foster, an American living in Dresden with her five children.^[38] Irving was particularly attracted to Mrs. Foster's 18-year-old daughter Emily, and vied in frustration for her hand. Emily finally refused his offer of marriage in the spring of 1823.^[39]

He returned to Paris and began collaborating with playwright John Howard Payne on translations of French plays for the English stage, with little success. He also learned through Payne that the novelist Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was romantically interested in him, though Irving never pursued the relationship.^[40]

In August 1824, Irving published the collection of essays Tales of a Traveller — including the short story "The Devil and Tom Walker" — under his Geoffrey Crayon persona. While the book sold respectably, Traveller bombed with critics.^[41] Hurt and depressed by the book's reception, Irving retreated to Paris where he spent the next year worrying about finances and scribbling down ideas for projects that never materialized.^[42]

[edit] Spanish books

While in Paris, Irving received a letter from Alexander Hill Everett on January 30, 1826. Everett, recently the American Minister to Spain, urged Irving to join him in Madrid,^[43] noting that a number of manuscripts dealing with the Spanish conquest of the Americas had recently been made public. Irving left for Madrid and enthusiastically began scouring the Spanish archives for colorful material.^[44]

The palace Alhambra, where Irving briefly resided in 1829, inspired one of his most colorful books.

With full access to the American consul's massive library of Spanish history, Irving began working on several books at once. The first offspring of this hard work, The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, was published in January 1828. The book was popular in the United States and in Europe and would have 175 editions published before the end of the century.^[45] It was also the first project of Irving's to be published with his own name, instead of a pseudonym, on the title page.^[46] The Chronicles of the Conquest of Granada was published a year later,^[47] followed by Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus in 1831.^[48]

Irving's writings on Columbus are a mixture of history and fiction, a genre now called romantic history. Irving based them on extensive research in the Spanish archives, but also added imaginative elements aimed at sharpening the story. The first of these works is the source of the durable myth that medieval Europeans believed the Earth was flat.^[49]

In 1829, Irving moved into Granada's ancient palace Alhambra, "determined to linger here," he said, "until I get some writings under way connected with the place."^[50] Before he could get any significant writing underway, however, he was notified of his appointment as Secretary to the American Legation in London. Worried he would disappoint friends and family if he refused the position, Irving left Spain for England in July 1829.^[51]

[edit] Secretary to the American legation in London

Arriving in London, Irving joined the staff of American Minister Louis McLane. McLane immediately assigned the daily secretary work to another man and tapped Irving to fill the role of aide-de-camp. The two worked over the next year to negotiate a trade agreement between the United States and the British West Indies, finally reaching a deal in August 1830. That same year, Irving was awarded a medal by the Royal Society of Literature, followed by an honorary doctorate of civil law from Oxford in 1831.^[52]

Following McLane's recall to the United States in 1831 to serve as Secretary of Treasury, Irving stayed on as the legation's chargé d'affaires until the arrival of Martin Van Buren, President Jackson's nominee for British Minister. With Van Buren in place, Irving resigned his post to concentrate on writing, eventually completing Tales of the Alhambra, which would be published concurrently in the United States and England in 1832.^[53]

Irving was still in London when Van Buren received word that the United States Senate had refused to confirm him as the new Minister. Consoling Van Buren, Irving predicted that the Senate's partisan move would backfire. "I should not be surprised," Irving said, "if this vote of the Senate goes far toward elevating him to the presidential chair."^[54]

[edit] Return to America

Washington Irving arrived in New York, after seventeen years abroad on May 21, 1832. That September, he accompanied the U.S. Commissioner on Indian Affairs, Henry Ellsworth, along with companions Charles La Trobe^[55] and Count Albert-Alexandre de Pourtales, on a surveying mission deep in Indian Territory.^[56] At the completion of his western tour, Irving traveled through Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, where he became acquainted with the politician and novelist John Pendleton Kennedy.^[57]

Frustrated by bad investments, Irving turned to writing to generate additional income, beginning with A Tour on the Prairies, a work which related his recent travels on the frontier. The book was another popular success and also the first book written and published by Irving in the United States since A History of New York in 1809.^[58] In 1834, he was approached by fur magnate John Jacob Astor, who convinced Irving to write a history of his fur trading colony in the American Northwest, now known as Astoria, Oregon. Irving made quick work of Astor's project, shipping the fawning biographical account titled Astoria in February 1836.^[59]

During an extended stay at Astor's, Irving met the explorer Benjamin Bonneville, who intrigued Irving with his maps and stories of the territories beyond the Rocky Mountains.^[60] When the two met in Washington, D.C. several months later, Bonneville opted to sell his maps and rough notes to Irving for $1,000.^[61] Irving used these materials as the basis for his 1837 book The Adventures of Captain Bonneville.^[62]

These three works made up Irving's "western" series of books and were written partly as a response to criticism that his time in England and Spain had made him more European than American.^[63] In the minds of some critics, especially James Fenimore Cooper, Irving had turned his back on his American heritage in favor of English aristocracy.^[64] Irving's western books, particularly A Tour on the Prairies, were well-received in the United States,^[65] though British critics accused Irving of "book-making".^[66]

Sunnyside: Irving's famous home in Tarrytown, New York, which Irving acquired in 1835.

In 1835, Irving purchased a "neglected cottage" and its surrounding riverfront property in Tarrytown, New York. The house, which Irving named Sunnyside in 1841,^[67] would require constant repair and renovation over the next twenty years. With costs of Sunnyside escalating, Irving reluctantly agreed in 1839 to become a regular contributor to Knickerbocker magazine, writing new essays and short stories under the Knickerbocker and Crayon pseudonyms.^[68]

Irving was regularly approached by aspiring young authors for advice or endorsement, including Edgar Allan Poe, who sought Irving's comments "on William Wilson" and "The Fall of the House of Usher".^[69] Irving also championed America's maturing literature, advocating for stronger copyright laws to protect writers from the kind of piracy that had initially plagued The Sketch Book. Writing in the January 1840 issue of Knickerbocker, he openly endorsed copyright legislation pending in the U.S. Congress. "We have a young literature", Irving wrote, "springing up and daily unfolding itself with wonderful energy and luxuriance, which... deserves all its fostering care." The legislation did not pass.^[70]

Irving at this time also began a friendly correspondence with the English writer Charles Dickens, and hosted the author and his wife at Sunnyside during Dickens's American tour in 1842.^[71]

[edit] Minister to Spain

In 1842, after an endorsement from Secretary of State Daniel Webster, President John Tyler appointed Irving as Minister to Spain.^[72] Irving was surprised and honored, writing, "It will be a severe trial to absent myself for a time from my dear little Sunnyside, but I shall return to it better enabled to carry it on comfortably."^[73]

While Irving hoped his position as Minister would allow him plenty of time to write, Spain was in a state of perpetual political upheaval during most of his tenure, with a number of warring factions vying for control of the twelve-year-old Queen Isabella II.^[74] Irving maintained good relations with the various generals and politicians, as control of Spain rotated through Espartero, Bravo, then Narvaez. However, the politics and warfare were exhausting, and Irving — homesick and suffering from a crippling skin condition — grew quickly disheartened:

With the political situation in Spain relatively settled, Irving continued to closely monitor the development of the new government and the fate of Isabella. His official duties as Spanish Minister also involved negotiating American trade interests with Cuba and following the Spanish parliament's debates over slave trade. He was also pressed into service by the American Minister to the Court of St. James's in London, Louis McLane, to assist in negotiating the Anglo-American disagreement over the Oregon border that newly-elected president James K. Polk had vowed to resolve.^[76]

[edit] Final years and death

Irving's grave, marked by a flag, in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Returning from Spain in 1846, Irving took up permanent residence at Sunnyside and began work on an "Author's Revised Edition" of his works for publisher George Palmer Putnam. For its publication, Irving had made a deal that guaranteed him 12 percent of the retail price of all copies sold. Such an agreement was unprecedented at that time.^[77] On the death of John Jacob Astor in 1848, Irving was hired as an executor of Astor's estate and appointed, by Astor's will, as first chairman of the Astor library, a forerunner to the New York Public Library.^[78]

As he revised his older works for Putnam, Irving continued to write regularly, publishing biographies of the writer and poet Oliver Goldsmith in 1849 and the prophet Muhammad in 1850. In 1855, he produced Wolfert's Roost, a collection of stories and essays he had originally written for Knickerbocker and other publications,^[79] and began publishing at intervals a biography of his namesake, George Washington, a work which he expected to be his masterpiece. Five volumes of the biography were published between 1855 and 1859.^[80] Irving traveled regularly to Mount Vernon and Washington, D.C. for his research, and struck up friendships with Presidents Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce.^[79]

He continued to socialize and keep up with his correspondence well into his seventies, and his fame and popularity continued to soar. "I don’t believe that any man, in any country, has ever had a more affectionate admiration for him than that given to you in America", wrote Senator William C. Preston in a letter to Irving. "I believe that we have had but one man who is so much in the popular heart."^[81]

On the evening of November 28, 1859, only eight months after completing the final volume of his Washington biography, Washington Irving died of a heart attack in his bedroom at Sunnyside at the age of 76. Legend has it that his last words were: "Well, I must arrange my pillows for another night. When will this end?"^[82] He was buried under a simple headstone at Sleepy Hollow cemetery on December 1, 1859.^[83]

Irving and his grave were commemorated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his 1876 poem, "In The Churchyard at Tarrytown", which concludes with:

How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death!
Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,
Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;
Dying, to leave a memory like the breath
Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere.^[84]

[edit] Legacy

[edit] Literary reputation

A bust of Washington Irving in Irvington, New York, not far from Sunnyside.

Irving is largely credited as the first American Man of Letters, and the first to earn his living solely by his pen. Eulogizing Irving before the Massachusetts Historical Society in December 1859, his friend, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, acknowledged Irving's role in promoting American literature: "We feel a just pride in his renown as an author, not forgetting that, to his other claims upon our gratitude, he adds also that of having been the first to win for our country an honourable name and position in the History of Letters."^[85]

Irving perfected the American short story,^[86] and was the first American writer to place his stories firmly in the United States, even as he poached from German or Dutch folklore. He is also generally credited as one of the first to write both in the vernacular, and without an obligation to the moral or didactic in his short stories, writing stories simply to entertain rather to enlighten.^[87]

Some critics, however — including Edgar Allan Poe — felt that while Irving should be given credit for being an innovator, the writing itself was often unsophisticated. "Irving is much over-rated," Poe wrote in 1838, "and a nice distinction might be drawn between his just and his surreptitious and adventitious reputation—between what is due to the pioneer solely, and what to the writer."^[88]

Other critics were inclined to be more forgiving of Irving's style. Henry Makepeace Thakeray was the first to refer to Irving as the "ambassador whom the New World of Letters sent to the Old,"^[89] a banner picked up by writers and critics throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. "He is the first of the American humorists, as he is almost the first of the American writers," wrote critic H.R. Hawless in 1881, "yet belonging to the New World, there is a quaint Old World flavor about him."^[90]

Early critics often had difficulty separating Irving the man from Irving the writer — "The life of Washington Irving was one of the brightest ever led by an author," wrote Richard Henry Stoddard, an early Irving biographer^[91] — but as years passed and Irving's celebrity personality faded into the background, critics often began to review his writings as all style, no substance. "The man had no message," said critic Barrett Wendell.^[92] Yet, critics conceded that despite Irving's lack of sophisticated themes — Irving biographer Stanley T. Williams could be scathing in his assessment of Irving's work^[93] — most agreed he wrote elegantly.

[edit] Impact on American culture

Irving popularized the nickname "Gotham" for New York City, later used in Batman comics and movies, and is credited with inventing the expression "the almighty dollar".

The surname of his Dutch historian, Diedrich Knickerbocker, is generally associated with New York and New Yorkers, and can still be seen across the jerseys of New York's professional basketball team, albeit in its more familiar, abbreviated form, reading simply Knicks.

One of Irving's most lasting contributions to American culture is in the way Americans perceive and celebrate Christmas. In his 1812 revisions to A History of New York, Irving inserted a dream sequence featuring St. Nicholas soaring over treetops in a flying wagon — a creation others would later dress up as Santa Claus. Later, in his five Christmas stories in The Sketch Book, Irving portrayed an idealized celebration of old-fashioned Christmas customs at a quaint English manor, which directly contributed to the revival and reinterpretation of the Christmas holiday in the United States.^[94] Charles Dickens later credited Irving as a strong influence on his own Christmas writings, including the classic A Christmas Carol.

Washington Irving's home — Sunnyside — is still standing, just south of the Tappan Zee Bridge in Tarrytown, New York. The original house and the surrounding property were once owned by 18th-century colonialist Wolfert Acker, about whom Irving wrote his sketch Wolfert's Roost (the name of the house). The house is now owned and operated as an historic site by Historic Hudson Valley and is open to the public for tours.

[edit] List of works

[edit] References

• Burstein, Andrew. The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving. (Basic Books, 2007). ISBN 978-0-465-00853-7
• Bowers, Claude G. The Spanish Adventures of Washington Irving. (Riverside Press, 1940).
• Hellman, George S. Washington Irving, Esquire. (Alfred A. Knopf, 1925).
• Irving, Pierre M. Life and Letters of Washington Irving. 4 vols. (G.P. Putnam, 1862). Cited herein as PMI.
• Irving, Washington. The Complete Works of Washington Irving. (Rust, et al, editors). 30 vols. (University of Wisconsin/Twayne, 1969-1986). Cited herein as Works.
• Jones, Brian Jay. Washington Irving: An American Original. (Arcade, 2008). ISBN 978-1-55970-836-4
• Warner, Charles Dudley. Washington Irving. (Riverside Press, 1881).
• Williams, Stanley T. The Life of Washington Irving. 2 vols. (Oxford University Press, 1935). ISBN 0781252911

[edit] Notes

Van Cortlandt Manor

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Van Cortlandt Manor
(U.S. National Historic Landmark)
Location:	Croton-On-Hudson, NY
Built/Founded:	1665
Architectural style(s):	Dutch-English Colonial
Designated as NHL:	November 5, 1961[1]
Added to NRHP:	October 15, 1966[2]
NRHP Reference#:	66000579

Van Cortlandt Manor is a house and property located by the confluence of the Croton and Hudson Rivers located in the village of Croton-On-Hudson in Westchester County, New York. The stone and brick manor house is now a National Historic Landmark. It is on Riverside Avenue.

Originally, it was an 86,000-acre (350 km²) tract granted as a Patent to Stephanus Van Cortlandt in 1697 by King William III. The manor house was built sometime before 1732 but was not any owner's principal residence until a grandson, Pierre Van Cortlandt, moved there in 1749. At that time the manor house was on a thousand-acre portion of the original tract. The house remained in Van Cortlandt family ownership until 1945. In 1953, John D. Rockefeller purchased it and began a restoration. The restored manor house was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1961.^[1],^[3],^[4]

The house is not included in the area of Cortlandt Manor, New York.

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} Van Cortlandt Manor. National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service (2007-09-21).
2. ^ National Register Information System. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2007-01-23).
3. ^ ["Van Cortlandt Manor", January, 1975, by James DillonPDF (454 KiB) National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination]. National Park Service (1975-01).
4. ^ [Van Cortlandt Manor--Accompanying photos, exterior, from 1967 and 1974.PDF (2.27 MiB) National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination]. National Park Service (1975-2008)

5. Lyndhurst (Jay Gould Estate)

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     (Redirected from Lyndhurst (house))

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   Jay Gould Estate (Lyndhurst)
   (U.S. National Historic Landmark)
   Front facade
   Location:	Tarrytown, New York
   Nearest city:	White Plains, New York
   Coordinates:	41°03′21″N 73°51′55″W? / ?41.05583, -73.86528Coordinates: 41°03′21″N 73°51′55″W? / ?41.05583, -73.86528
   Area:	67 acres (27 ha)
   Built/Founded:	1838
   Architect:	Alexander Jackson Davis
   Architectural style(s):	Gothic Revival
   Designated as NHL:	1966
   Added to NRHP:	1966
   NRHP Reference#:	66000582
   Governing body:	National Trust for Historic Preservation

   Lyndhurst, also known as Jay Gould Estate, is a Gothic Revival country house within its own 67-acre park beside the Hudson River, located in Tarrytown, New York approximately one-half mile south of the Tappan Zee Bridge on US 9. The house was designed in 1838 by Alexander Jackson Davis, and has been the home of former New York City mayor William Paulding, Jr., merchant George Merritt, and railroad tycoon Jay Gould, whose daughter Anna Gould, Duchess of Talleyrand-Perigord, donated it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1961. It is now open to the public.

   

   Architectural detail.

   When first built, the house was named "Knoll"; but critics immediately dubbed it "Paulding's Folly" because its extremely unusual design, including fanciful turrets and asymmetrical outline. Its limestone exterior was quarried at Sing Sing (now known as Ossining). The second owner, Merritt, doubled the house's size in 1864-65 and renamed it "Lyndenhurst" for the estate's linden trees. His new north wing added an imposing four-story tower, new porte-cochere (the old one was reworked as a glass walled vestibule) and a new dining room, two bedrooms, and servants quarters. Jay Gould purchased the home in 1880 for use as a country house until his death in 1892. It was Gould who shortened the house's name to today's Lyndhurst.

   Lyndhurst's interior is strikingly unusual. Unlike later mansions along the Hudson River, rooms are few and of more modest scale, and strongly Gothic in character. Hallways are narrow, windows small and sharply arched, and ceilings are fantastically peaked, vaulted, and ornamented. The effect is at once gloomy, somber, and highly romantic; the large, double-height art gallery provides a welcome contrast of light and space.

   

   A view in the front park.

   The house sits within a very fine park, designed by Ferdinand Mangold in the English naturalistic style. Mangold was hired by Merritt. He drained the surrounding swamps, created lawns, planted specimen trees, and built the conservatory. His resultant landscape was the first such park along the Hudson River. It provides an outstanding example of 19th century landscape design, with rolling lawns accented with shrubs and specimen trees, a curving entrance drive that reveals "surprise" views, and a remarkably large (390 foot long) steel-framed conservatory (the first in the United States).

   The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966.^[1][2]

   The house is also well known for being the set for the 1970 movie House of Dark Shadows, and the 1971 movie Night of Dark Shadows, both based on the famous gothic soap opera Dark Shadows.

   American Broadcasting Company's holiday telefilm The Halloween That Almost Wasn't was shot here.

   North library.

   Dining room fireplace.

   [edit] References

   1. ^ Jay Gould Estate (Lyndhurst). National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service (2007-09-15).
   2. ^ Richard Greenwood (May 30, 1975), National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Jay Gould Estate, LyndhurstPDF (665 KiB), National Park Service  and Accompanying photos, exterior, 1975 and undated.PDF (1.36 MiB)

   [edit] External links

   • Official Site. Retrieved on 2006-06-07.

   • Photos of Lyndhurst at Historic American Buildings Survey: Main house, 98 photos, Greenhouse 38 photos,
   • Outbuildings, 8 photos,
   • Stables, 5 photos,
   • Swimming pool, 4 photos,
   • Boat landing, 3 photos.

   [hide] v • d • e U.S. National Register of Historic Places History of the National Register of Historic Places · Property types · Historic district · Contributing property List of entries National Park Service · National Historic Landmarks · National Battlefields · National Historic Sites · National Historical Parks · National Memorials · National Monuments

   Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndhurst_%28Jay_Gould_Estate%29"

   Categories: National Historic Landmarks in New York | Houses in New York | Gothic Revival architecture | 1838 architecture | Tarrytown, New York | U.S. Route 9 | Alexander Jackson Davis buildings | Museums in New York

Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow

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Dutch Reformed Church (Sleepy Hollow)
(U.S. National Historic Landmark)
Church seen from north, 2003
Location:	Sleepy Hollow, New York
Nearest city:	Tarrytown
Coordinates:	41°05′25.46″N 73°51′42.7″W? / ?41.0904056, -73.861861Coordinates: 41°05′25.46″N 73°51′42.7″W? / ?41.0904056, -73.861861
Area:	3 acres (12 ha)
Built/Founded:	1685
Architect:	Frederick Philipse
Architectural style(s):	Dutch Colonial
Designated as NHL:	November 5, 1961 [1]
Added to NRHP:	October 15, 1966[2]
NRHP Reference#:	66000581
Governing body:	Reformed Church of the Tarrytowns

The Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, also known as Dutch Reformed Church (Sleepy Hollow), is a 17th century church located in Sleepy Hollow, New York, United States. The church and its three acre (12 ha) churchyard feature prominently in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". The churchyard is often confused with the contiguous but separate Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Contents [show] 1 History 2 Renovations 3 Notable Burials 4 References 5 References 6 External links

[edit] History

Frederick Philipse I, Lord of Philipse Manor, owned the vast stretch of land spanning from Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx to the Croton River. After swearing allegiance and later being granted his Manorship from the English, he began construction of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow. Although financing this project, work likely progressed slowly and was completed in 1685.

The church's walls are about two-feet thick and are composed of local fieldstone.

Cast in Holland in 1685, the tiny church bell still hangs in the open-air steeple. Engraved on the bell is a verse from