Washington Irving's grave

Author. A short story writer, essayist, poet, travel book writer, biographer, attorney, and columnist, he was born in New York City as the youngest of 11 children. He has been called the "Father of the American Short Story", and is best known for works 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,' in which the schoolmaster Ichabod Crane meets with a headless horseman, and 'Rip Van Winkle,' about a man who falls asleep for 20 years. He wrote under the pseudonyms Dietrich Knickerbocker, Jonathan Oldstyle, and Geoffrey Crayon. From 1836 to 1842 Irving lived at Sunnyside manor house, Tarrytown, New York, where he died. In the 1990s the village of North Tarrytown was renamed Sleepy Hollow.