The centennial anniversary of the event was commemorated in 1880 by placing, through the generosity of John Anderson, on the original obelisk of 1853, a large statue representing John Paulding as a minute man.

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That overruling Providence which has so often and so remarkably interposed in our favor, never manifested itself more conspicuously than in the timely discovery of Arnold’s treachery.

    George Washington.

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Tarrytown was the very heart of the debatable ground of the Revolution and many striking incidents mark its early history.  In 1777 Vaughan’s troops landed here on their way to attack Fort Montgomery, and here a party of Americans, under Major Hunt, surprised a number of British refugees while playing cards at the Van Tassel tavern.  The major completely “turned the cards” upon them by rushing in with brandished stick, which he brought down with emphasis upon the table, remarking with genuine American brevity, “Gentlemen, clubs are trumps.”  Here, too, according to Irving, arose the two great orders of chivalry, the “Cow Boys” and “Skinners.”  The former fought, or rather marauded under the American, the latter under the British banner; the former were known as “Highlanders,” the latter as the “Lower-Party.”  In the zeal of service both were apt to make blunders, and confound the property of friend and foe.  “Neither of them, in the heat and hurry of a foray, had time to ascertain the politics of a horse or cow which they were driving off into captivity, nor when they wrung the neck of a rooster did they trouble their heads whether he crowed for Congress or King George.”

It was also a genial, reposeful country for the faithful historian, Diedrich Knickerbocker; and here he picked up many of those legends which were given by him to the world.  One of these was the legend connected with the old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow.  “A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere.  Some say the place was bewitched by a high German doctor during the early days of the settlement; others that an old Indian chief, the wizard of his tribe, held his pow-wows there before Hendrick Hudson’s discovery of the river.  The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, is the apparition of a figure on horse-back, without a head, said to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, and was known at all the country firesides as the ‘Headless horseman’ of Sleepy Hollow.”

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  O waters of Pocantico! 
    Wild rivulet of wood and glen! 
  May thy glad laughter, sweet and low,
    Long, long outlive the sighs of men.

  S.  H. Thayer.

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[Illustration:  SLEEPY HOLLOW CHURCH.]

=Sleepy Hollow.=—­The Old Dutch Church, the oldest on the Hudson, is about one-half mile north from Tarrytown.