Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
of her crew as if heaving the lead."
Tappan Village, naming the Tappan Zee, is some distance back from
Piermont. Over on the eastern bank, nearly opposite Nyack, is
Tarrytown, the "Torwen-Dorp" or "Wheat-Town" of the ancient Dutch,
which has gradually changed to the present name. The genial Irving,
never at a loss for a reason for the names of places along the river,
tells how the good housewives named it Tarrytown because of their
spouses' propensity to linger in the village tavern on market days. It
is now one of the most elegant places on the Hudson, notable for its
splendid villas. The attractive region about the Tappan Zee is full of
Revolutionary memories, and particularly of the great historic tragedy
made by the treason of Arnold and the capture of André. Major John
André, at the age of twenty-nine, in 1780, was Adjutant General of the
British Army, then commanded by Sir Henry Clinton in New York. On
September 20th André came to Dobbs's Ferry to meet Arnold, with whom
he had been in secret correspondence in reference to the surrender of
West Point, where Arnold commanded. The next night he met Arnold at
Stony Point, just below the Highlands, and started back with Arnold's
passport and documents enabling the British to so direct an attack
upon West Point as to capture it. These papers were in Arnold's
handwriting, and at his suggestion André concealed them between the
soles of his feet and his stockings. André tried to make his way down
the eastern side of the Hudson to New York in disguise, taking the
Tarrytown road, through what was then known as the "neutral ground,"
which was overrun by marauders from both armies. When within a
half-mile of Tarrytown, at a little stream since called André's
Brook, he was captured by Paulding, Williams and Van Wert, three
American scouts, whom he mistook for his own partisans, and they
searched him and found the treasonable papers. Rejecting all bribes,
they took him across the Hudson to Tappan, then the American army
headquarters, where he was condemned and hanged as a spy on October
2d. The old house wherein he was imprisoned still stands in Tappan,
and his remains were interred there until 1821, when they were
conveyed to Westminster Abbey, London.
THE HOME OF WASHINGTON IRVING.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account