Wolferts Roost and Miscellanies | Page 6

war-clubs beside them. This was the origin of that potent and drowsy
spell which still prevails over the valley of the Pocantico, and which
has gained it the well-merited appellation of Sleepy Hollow. Often, in
secluded and quiet parts of that valley, where the stream is overhung by
dark woods and rocks, the ploughman, on some calm and sunny day as
he shouts to his oxen, is surprised at hearing faint shouts from the
hill-sides in reply; being, it is said, the spell-bound warriors, who half
start from their rocky couches and grasp their weapons, but sink to
sleep again.
The conquest of the Pocantico was the last triumph of the wizard
sachem. Notwithstanding all his medicine and charms, he fell in battle
in attempting to extend his boundary line to the east so as to take in the
little wild valley of the Sprain, and his grave is still shown near the
banks of that pastoral stream. He left, however, a great empire to his
successors, extending along the Tappan Zee, from Yonkers quite to
Sleepy Hollow; all which delectable region, if every one had his right,
would still acknowledge allegiance to the lord of the Boost--whoever
he might be. [Footnote: In recording the contest for the sovereignty of
Sleepy Hollow, I have called one sachem by the modern name of his
castle or strong-hold, viz.: Sing-Sing. This, I would observe for the
sake of historical exactness, is a corruption of the old Indian name,
O-sin-sing, or rather O-sin-song; that is to say, a place where any thing
may be had for a song--a great recommendation tor a market town. The
modern and melodious alteration of the name to Sing-Sing is said to
have been made in compliment to an eminent Methodist singing-master,
who first introduced into the neighborhood the art of singing through
the nose. D. K.]

The wizard sachem was succeeded by a line of chiefs, of whom nothing
remarkable remains on record. The last who makes any figure in
history is the one who ruled here at the time of the discovery of the
country by the white man. This sachem is said to have been a renowned
trencherman, who maintained almost as potent a sway by dint of good
feeding as his warlike predecessor had done by hard fighting. He
diligently cultivated the growth of oysters along the aquatic borders of
his territories, and founded those great oyster-beds which yet exist
along the shores of the Tappan Zee. Did any dispute occur between him
and a neighboring sachem, he invited him and all his principal sages
and fighting-men to a solemn banquet, and seldom failed of feeding
them into terms. Enormous heaps of oyster-shells, which encumber the
lofty banks of the river, remain as monuments of his gastronomical
victories, and have been occasionally adduced through mistake by
amateur geologists from town, as additional proofs of the deluge.
Modern investigators, who are making such indefatigable researches
into our early history, have even affirmed that this sachem was the very
individual on whom Master Hendrick Hudson and his mate, Robert
Juet, made that sage and astounding experiment so gravely recorded by
the latter in his narrative of the voyage: "Our master and his mate
determined to try some of the cheefe men of the country whether they
had any treacherie in them. So they took them down into the cabin and
gave them so much wine and aqua vitae that they were all very merrie;
one of them had his wife with him, which sate so modestly as any of
our countrywomen would do in a strange place. In the end one of them
was drunke; and that was strange to them, for they could not tell how to
take it." [Footnote: See Juet's Journal, Purchas Pilgrim.]
How far Master Hendrick Hudson and his worthy mate carried their
experiment with the sachem's wife is not recorded, neither does the
curious Robert Juet make any mention of the after-consequences of this
grand moral test; tradition, however, affirms that the sachem on landing
gave his modest spouse a hearty rib-roasting, according to the
connubial discipline of the aboriginals; it farther affirms that he
remained a hard drinker to the day of his death, trading away all his
lands, acre by acre, for aqua vitae; by which means the Roost and all its
domains, from Yonkers to Sleepy Hollow, came, in the regular course

of trade and by right of purchase, into the possession of the Dutchmen.
Never has a territorial right in these new countries been more
legitimately and tradefully established; yet, I grieve to say, the worthy
government of the New Netherlands was not suffered to enjoy this
grand acquisition unmolested; for, in the year 1654, the local Yankees
of Connecticut--those swapping, bargaining, squatting enemies of the
Manhattoes--made a daring