Some two miles out of Kinderhook stands Lindenwald, to which Ex-President Van Buren retired. The house was built by Judge William P. Van Ness, previously mentioned. Washington Irving was a welcome and frequent guest in the Van Ness household, and it was in this neighborhood that he became acquainted with Jesse Merwin, school teacher, prototype of Ichabod Crane in the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The two men were the best of friends, and the caricature does not seem to have cooled their pleasant relations. The schoolhouse stands on the roadside, somewhat nearer the village; at least the building pointed out as such is there, but in a letter to Merwin, Irving regrets that the old schoolhouse is torn down "where, after my morning's literary task was over, I used to come and wait for you, occasionally, until school was dismissed. You would promise to keep back the punishment of some little tough, broad-bottomed Dutch boy, until I could come, for my amusement--but never kept your promise." The following notice of the death of "Ichabod Crane" appeared in the Westchester Herald for November 30, 1852: "Jesse Merwin died at Kinderhook on the 8th instant, at the age of seventy years. Mr. Merwin was well known in this community as an upright, honorable man, in whom there was no guile. He was for many years a Justice of the Peace, the duties of which office he discharged with scrupulous fidelity and conscientious regard to the just claims of suitors, ever frowning upon those whose vocation it is to "foment discord and perplex right." At an early period of his life, and while engaged in school teaching, he passed much of his time in the society of Washington Irving, then a preceptor in the family of the late Judge Van Ness, of this town. "Both were engaged in congenial pursuits and, their residences being only a short distance apart, the author of the 'Sketch Book' frequently visited the 'Old Schoolhouse,' in which 'Squire Merwin' was employed in teaching the young idea how to shoot, and subsequently immortalized his name by making him the hero of one of his inimitable tales, 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.'" [Sidenote: _KATRINA VAN TASSEL HOUSE._] A step further on, and across the highway, stands the Katrina Van Tassel house, on whose blooming young mistress the Yankee pedagogue was wont to cast longing eyes; this is the old Van Allen house, built in 1717, says one, in 1735 according to another--a plain building whose Holland bricks are still good, though somewhat the worse for wear.