Eagle Feathers #224 – Washington Irving

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

Washington Irving was born in 1783 in Manhattan near the Hudson River during the last week of the Revolutionary War and died 76 patriotic years later. During his lifetime, he was known as a man of stories and letters.

His early writings spawned a wondrous mythology of Dutch Colonial New York, coining its townsmen the Knickerbockers and their city Gotham. He loved the Hudson River and built his home, Sunnyside, near its shore in Tarrytown.

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Irving’s mother named him after President George Washington, and when he was six years old, he was blessed by him. It seemed fitting because Irving went on to write a five-volume biography, The Life of George Washington.

What Bobby Boris Pickett and his Halloween song, Monster Mash, are to Somerville, the Headless Horseman is to Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow.
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Early on, Irving brought romance to the Hudson Valley with his famous works of Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. He also brought historic romance to our Mystic River Valley with his Tales of a Traveller, which include stories of Kidd the Pirate and The Devil and Tom Walker.
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These tales feature the notorious Captain Kidd’s treasure, pirates, the devil, and the Mystic River. Kidd became rich from his ill-gotten fortune. It is said that he buried gold and jewels from Maine to Florida. Many people suspected his treasure was buried near Boston close to where he was captured.

One site was thought to be on the southern shore of the Mystic River. For years, treasure hunters dug holes in the hillsides of Plowed, Winter, and Ten Hills. They were spurred on by hunches, legends, and counterfeit maps but to no avail. It is said that before Captain Kidd was captured, he was hiding in a house on the old Governor Winthrop’s Estate.
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How ironic … Ten Hills was the birthplace of anti-piracy in America because the Blessing of the Bay was the first colonial ship to be armed against piracy.

After Irving’s death, he was honored before the Massachusetts Historical Society as the First American Man of Letters in a tribute given by Winter Hill’s Edward Everett.