The cemetery is a non-profit, non-sectarian burying ground of about 90 acres (36ha).[1] It is contiguous with, but separate from, the churchyard of the Old Dutch Church, the colonial-era church that was a setting for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The Rockefeller family estate (Kykuit), whose grounds abut Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, contains the private Rockefeller cemetery.
Notable monuments
While the Revolutionary Soldiers' Monument is a simple granite obelisk, its location is significant: it was built on top of the cemetery's Battle Hill, which was a strategic local spot during the Revolutionary War, where a lunette (or redoubt) had been located around 1779 to guard the Albany Post Road crossing of the Pocantico River just south of the cemetery.[4] Battle Hill may have been the place where Hulda of Bohemia (c.1700-c.1777), the semi-legendary "witch" and Revolutionary War hero of Sleepy Hollow, was killed by British soldiers while protecting the local militia.[5][6]
Funds for the 1894 monument were raised under the leadership of Marcius D. Raymond, publisher of the local Tarrytown Argus newspaper. It was erected specifically to honor the local veterans of the Revolution who are buried in the adjacent Old Dutch Burying Ground, which holds one of the highest concentrations of Revolutionary War veteran graves in the state of New York.[7] The October 19, 1894, dedication was a major event: crowds from New York City and the area arrived by trains and excursion boats, a parade came up Broadway, and two Navy cruisers in the Tappan Zee provided a dramatic cannon salute.[8][9] Raymond later published a book detailing the celebration,[10] which also contains invaluable historical data on related Revolutionary War events and the families whose names are inscribed on the monument.
The Civil War Soldiers Monument was erected in 1890 in honor of Company H of the 32nd New York Infantry Regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The Company was composed exclusively of local volunteers from the Tarrytown area. They fought in the First Battle of Bull Run, the Peninsular Campaign, and the Battles of South Mountain, Antietam, and Chancellorsville. Many of them are buried in the cemetery, near the monument. Its granite base is topped by a 7-foot-6-inch bronze statue of a Union infantry soldier standing at "parade rest;" bronze plaques on the base list some 240 names.
Helmsley mausoleum
The Helmsley Mausoleum, final resting place of Harry and Leona Helmsley, features a window showing the skyline of Manhattan in stained glass. It was built by Mrs. Helmsley at a cost of $1.4 million in 2007. She had her husband's body moved from its resting place in Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York) to the new mausoleum.[11][12]
The modest Washington Irving's gravestone in the Irving family plot is the most visited place in the cemetery. This is the third iteration of this gravestone; souvenir hunters chipped away at previous ones, which eventually had to be replaced. (In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was a common, though destructive, practice for tourists to chip off small pieces of headstone of famous people as souvenirs.[13]) Creating a unique literary landmark, the author's final resting place is located near the historic Burying Ground of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, where the graves of people who inspired The Legend of Sleepy Hollow characters are located. In the words of Marcius D. Raymond:[10]
Sleepy Hollow! There is no more fitting final resting place for heroic dead. The genius of Irving, whose remains, at his own request, rest within her soil, that sweet and gentle Father of American Literature, has made her name known and loved, as far and as widely as the English tongue is spoken.
Notable burials
Owen Jones monumentHenry Villard Memorial by Karl Bitter
Numerous notable people are interred at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, including:[1]
Robert Havell, Jr. (1793–1878), British-American engraver who printed and colored John James Audubon's monumental Birds of America series, also painter in the style of the Hudson River School
Harry Helmsley (1909–1997), real estate mogul who built a company that became one of the biggest property holders in the United States, and his wife Leona Helmsley (1920–2007), in a mausoleum with a stained-glass panorama of the Manhattan skyline. Leona famously bequeathed $12million to her dog.
William Howard Hoople (1868–1922), a leader of the nineteenth-century American Holiness movement; the co-founder of the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America, and one of the early leaders of the Church of the Nazarene
Albert Lasker (1880–1952), pioneer of the American advertising industry, part owner of baseball team the Chicago Cubs, and wife Mary Lasker (1900–1994), an American health activist and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal
Hans Zinsser (1878–1940), microbiologist and a prolific author
In popular culture
Several outdoor scenes from the feature film House of Dark Shadows (1970) were filmed at the cemetery's receiving vault. The cemetery also served as a location for the Ramones' 1989 music video "Pet Sematary".[19]
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