Something Different: Irving's Headless Horseman
The origins of the Headless Hessian, and Brom Bones, and Ichabod Crane.
In 1820 Washington Irving released the short story 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' featuring a headless Hessian Soldier as a focal point of the story. Many have assumed that this Headless Horseman was derived from numerous folk traditions with roots in the old world. There are many traditions of headless horsemen, from Ewan, a Scot deprived of being Chieftain of his clan after his untimely death in battle, and the oft assumed Dullahan of Ireland, Avenging headless ghosts from Germany, and many more. No doubt these old world traditions had some influence on local folklore in the Hudson Valley, but it is interesting to note, the most often assumed influence the Dullahan, was in fact not attested (though it is no doubt an older tradition) until AFTER Irving penned ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow‘.
While these logically stand as likely inspirations, much of his work was actually inspired by folkloric traditions of the Hudson Valley, and as we will see, it seems that these local traditions were partially inspired by more recent events.
Irving's story is riddled with characters who are inspired by real figures local to Tarrytown. Catriena Ecker Van Tassel's grave can be found, giving her namesake to Katrina, though Catriena herself was not a fit for the coquettish Katrina. This instead goes to Eleanor Van Tassel, her younger niece.
There is a lone nameless Hessian grave in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, and there have been many attempts to identify this soldier.
The headless horseman himself was possibly inspired by a Hessian Grenadier, who lost his head to a cannonball at the Battle of White Plains during the American Revolutionary War. Author Christopher Rondina searched records to find that this Grenadier was Private Heinrich Range.
The Van Tassel's themselves have been linked to the burial of this Hessian. The year after the Battle of White plains Cornelius and Peter Van Tassel were arrested by British and Hessian soldiers, and their farm burned.
With their home set ablaze and he husband arrested, Cornelius' wife Elizabeth Van Tassel was left stranded with their daughter Leah. Seeing this one of the Hessian Jäger’s bravely ran into the burning house to bring a mattress and blankets to keep them from freezing to death in the harsh winter night.
There is a slightly different account of this event however. Elizabeth after being driven from the house realizes that her daughter Leah was missing, as panic set in the soldiers led Elizabeth to their nearby barn, and inside she found that a Hessian had saved Leah from the blaze. This version tells that in their gratitude they arranged for the burial of this lone headless Hessian. This is unsatisfactory with the chronology of Private Heinrich Range's death over a year before the farm burning.
It may be that the dead Hessian was killed in a later incident, possibly a skirmish near the church bridge ala Irving's note of him dying in some 'nameless battle', buried expediently nearby, possibly even at the behest of the Van Tassels. Either way, Irving drew upon not just existing folklore, but the real people of Tarrytown for his classic story.
Another of those real people within Irving's 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' are the inspirations behind Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt. Brom has not just one, but three historical analogues. The first was Abraham Martling, born around 1742. Abraham was the town blacksmith, and was known himself to ride a large black horse, like Irving's Brom (Brom is a a common nickname for Abraham or Abram). Abraham also had a son, also named Abraham. Born around 1763, he would also contribute to Brom Bones.
In 1777 around the age of 14 or 15, the younger Abraham Martling helped rally numerous other men to avenge the burning of the Van Tassel's farms. Abraham and the others commandeered numerous small boats under the cover of darkness, rowed down the Hudson until they reached New York City, and upon encountering little resistance, looted the Tory General Oliver Delancey's house and then set it ablaze.
They made their way back after their late-night raid, with Martling being noted as carrying a massive pair of fireplace andirons on his back, a testament to the young teens strength, no doubt from helping his father at his occupation. Abraham went on to serve under Colonel Armand during the Revolution, and was at the famous battle of York-town when Lord Cornwallis surrendered. He later bought a small plot of land from the Van Tassels eventually requesting a pension for his military service, as he was impoverished and stated in his appeal that he was
“extremely poor; his debts amounted to five pounds; his cash in hand was fifty cents; that his real estate consisted of a few acres of mossy rock; that his dwelling was a hole in the ground 'With a roof over it’”
Abraham died in 1841 around the age of 78.
The third inspiration comes from Brom Van Alstyne, who pranking his friend Jesse Merwin cemented himself as part of the legend. Jesse Merwin was a schoolteacher from Kinderhook, New York, and once penned a letter as "Jesse Merwin, the original of Ichabod Crane", so he at least considered himself part of the inspiration. Merwin was not a physical match for Ichabod, the honor of which supposedly goes to a man Irving called Lockie Longlegs, a Scottish teacher Irving mentioned in a letter to fellow author Sir Walter Scott. Merwin also does not share Ichabod’s name, which was drawn from a Colonel in the U.S. army, who bears little resemblance to the superstitious schoolteacher. So this leaves us with why Jesse felt he was ‘the original of Ichabod Crane”. In Irving’s story it is heavily implied that the Headless Horseman’s appearance to Ichabod was in fact a prank played by Brom Bones. Merwin was similarly pranked, which become part of the local Kinderhook lore. Merwin had been courting a girl named Jane Van Dyke for years, and would not commit to marriage. His friends finally took matters into their own hands and Brom Van Alstyne donned ghostly attire to scare his friend. Shortly after leaving Van Dyke’s home one night Brom accosted his friend Jesse as a ghostly specter wrapped in dark robes, chasing him with terrifying and booming laughter.
Merwin seems to have taken the hint, and married Jane, and subsequently had 11 children. In the end, a blacksmith, a veteran, and a prankster all helped contribute to the character of Abraham 'Brom Bones' Van Brunt, just as two schoolteachers and a Colonel helped build Ichabod Crane.
