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Another, a perfectly wizard stream, which winds through the wildest recesses of Sleepy Hollow, bears the hum-drum name of Mill Creek: in the Indian grants, it sustains the euphonious title of the Pocantico.

The problem was, just where to put the new home at Pocantico Hills, which has recently been built.

Sen, meaning son in Dutch, Felypsen meant the son of Felyp, Frederick the son of Philip. On the west bank of the Pocantico Philipse built his first manorial residence, called Castle Philipse on account of its strength and armament, it not only being loopholed for musketry, as was common in those days, but was also defended by several small cannon.

The conquest of the Pocantico was the last triumph of the wizard sachem. Notwithstanding all his medicine and charms, he fell in battle in attempting to extend his boundary line to the east so as to take in the little wild valley of the Sprain, and his grave is still shown near the banks of that pastoral stream.

This was the origin of that potent and drowsy spell which still prevails over the valley of the Pocantico, and which has gained it the well-merited appellation of Sleepy Hollow.

The intervening country, from Croton River to Spiting Devil Creek, was the debateable land, subject to be harried by friend and foe, like the Scottish borders of yore. It is a rugged country, with a line of rocky hills extending through it, like a back bone, sending ribs on either side; but among these rude hills are beautiful winding valleys, like those watered by the Pocantico and the Neperan.

It stood outside of the Hollow, near the great highway, on a green bank shaded by trees, with the Pocantico sweeping round it and emptying itself into a spacious mill-pond. At that time the Sleepy Hollow church was the only place of worship for a wide neighborhood.

At Pocantico Hills, New York, where I have spent portions of my time for many years in an old house where the fine views invite the soul and where we can live simply and quietly, I have spent many delightful hours, studying the beautiful views, the trees, and fine landscape effects of that very interesting section of the Hudson River, and this happened in the days when I seemed to need every minute for the absorbing demands of business.

We plant our young trees, especially evergreens, by the thousand I think we have put in as many as ten thousand at once, and let them develop, to be used later in some of our planting schemes. If we transfer young trees from Pocantico to our home in Lakewood, we charge one place and credit the other for these trees at the market rate.

A stone memorial bridge to Irving was presented to the town by William Rockefeller, replacing the bridge over Pocantico brook, at North Tarrytown, over which the headless horsemen of Sleepy Hollow rode. On the east side of the road just north of the bridge is the old Dutch church, built probably in 1697 or possibly earlier.