I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud, for it is in
such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed
in the great State of New York, that population, manners, and
customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of migration and
improvement, which is making such incessant changes in other
parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. They
are like those little nooks of still water which border a rapid
stream where we may see the straw and bubble riding quietly at
anchor or slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed by
the rush of the passing current. Though many years have elapsed
since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question
whether I should not still find the same trees and the same
families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.
In this by-place of Nature there abode, in a remote period of
American history--that is to say, some thirty years since--a
worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as
he expressed it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow for the purpose of
instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of
Connecticut, a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for
the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its
legions of frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters.
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