The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Wr - Washington Irving [237]
His remains were deposited in the family vault, under a chapel which he had piously erected on his estate, and dedicated to St. Nicholas,—and which stood on the identical spot at present occupied by St. Mark’s church, where his tombstone is still to be seen. His estate, or bouwery, as it was called, has ever continued in the possession of his descendants, who, by the uniform integrity of their conduct, and their strict adherence to the customs and manners that prevailed in the “good old times,” have proved themselves worthy of their illustrious ancestor. Many a time and oft has the farm been haunted at night by enterprising money-diggers, in quest of pots of gold, said to have been buried by the old governor, though I cannot learn that any of them have ever been enriched by their researches; and who is there, among my native-born fellow-citizens, that does not remember when, in the mischievous days of his boyhood, he conceived it a great exploit to rob “Stuyvesant’s orchard” on a holiday afternoon?
At this stronghold of the family may still be seen certain memorials of the immortal Peter. His full-length portrait frowns in martial terrors from the parlor-wall; his cocked hat and sword still hang up in the best bedroom; his brimstone- colored breeches were for a long while suspended in the hall, until some years since they occasioned a dispute between a new-married couple; and his silver-mounted wooden leg is still treasured up in the store-room, as an invaluable relique.
Endnotes
Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent.
1 (p. 7) Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent.: Irving’s first publication, Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent., appeared serially in the New York Morning Chronicle from November 15, 1802, to April 23, 1803. The Chronicle was a pro-Burrite paper edited by Irving’s brother Peter. (The Burrites were a faction of the Democratic-Republican party led by Aaron Burr [1756-1836], the prominent New York politician who became Thomas Jefferson’s vice president following the election of 1800.) The first two of the nine letters are included in this edition because they exemplify Irving’s early efforts to establish a satiric narrative voice. Although he was only nineteen at the time, Irving assumed the narrative persona of an elderly bachelor critical of “the degeneracy of the present times” (p. 13). In his nostalgia for an idyllic past, Oldstyle anticipates Irving’s better-known narrators Diedrich Knickerbocker (A History of New York) and Geoffrey Crayon (The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.). These letters also reflect the cultural instability of the post-Revolutionary period, in which social values and political opinions seemed to change as quickly as fashion—“they fly from one extreme to the other” (p. 9).
2 (p. 11) There is nothing that seems more strange and preposterous to me than the manner in which modern marriages are conducted: Oldstyle’s comments on courtship and marriage can be usefully compared with the romantic characterization of marriage in Irving’s sketch “The Wife” (p. 65) and with the satire on courtship in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (p. 162). The attitude toward marriage in Irving’s writings is often conflicted, and his female characters are either idealized beauties or shrewish wives.
Salmagundi
1 (p. 15) Salmagundi: Salmagundi; or, The Whim- Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq. & Others was a series of twenty pamphlets jointly written by Irving, his brother William, and their friend James Kirke Paulding and published over the course of a year, from January 24, 1807, to January 25, 1808. This selection includes the introductory remarks