As our “Washington Irving” sails the bright waters of Tappan Zee he
speaks familiarly of his dear Sunnyside as “The Roost”--the “Wolfert
Roost” of old Baltus Van Tassel and his fair daughter Katrina. Where
Ichabod Crane lingered that eventful night after all the guests were
gone which preceded his dramatic ride with the “Headless Horseman”
referred to more fully in his “Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”
Irving aptly described Sunnyside as “made up of gable-ends, and full
of angles and corners as an old cocked hat. It is said, in fact,
to have been modeled after the hat of Peter the Headstrong, as the
Escurial of Spain was fashioned after the gridiron of the blessed St.
Lawrence.” Wolfert’s Roost (Roost signifying Rest) took its name from
Wolfert Acker, a former owner. It consisted originally of ten acres
when purchased by Irving in 1855, but several acres were afterwards
added. With great humor Irving put above the porch entrance “George
Harvey, Boum’r,” Boumeister being an old Dutch word for architect. A
storm-worn weathercock, “which once battled with the wind on the top
of the Stadt House of New Amsterdam in the time of Peter Stuyvesant,
erects his crest on the gable, and a gilded horse in full gallop, once
the weathercock of the great Van der Heyden palace of Albany, glitters
in the sunshine, veering with every breeze, on the peaked turret over
the portal.”
About fifty years ago a cutting of Walter Scott’s favorite ivy at
Melrose Abbey was transported across the Atlantic, and trained over the
porch of “Sunnyside,” by the hand of Mrs. Renwick, daughter of Rev.
Andrew Jeffrey of Lochmaben, known in girlhood as the “Bonnie Jessie”
of Annandale, or the “Blue-eyed Lassie” of Robert Burns:--a graceful
tribute, from the shrine of Waverly to the nest of Knickerbocker:
A token of friendship immortal
With Washington Irving returns!--
Scott’s ivy entwined o’er its portal
By the Blue-eyed Lassie of Burns.
Scott’s cordial greeting at Abbotsford, and his persistence in getting
Murray to reconsider the publication of the “Sketch Book,” which
he had previously declined, were never forgotten by Irving. It was
during a critical period of his literary career, and the kindness of
the Great Magician, in directing early attention to his genius, is
still cherished by every reader of the “Sketch Book” from Manhattan
to San Francisco. The hearty grasp of the minstrel at the gateway of
Abbotsford was in reality a warm handshake to a wider brotherhood
beyond the sea.
While he was building “Sunnyside” a letter came from Daniel Webster,
then Secretary of State, appointing him minister to Spain. It was
unexpected and unsolicited, and Webster remarked that day to a friend:
“Washington Irving today will be the most surprised man in America.”
Irving had already shown diplomatic ability in London in promoting
the settlement of the “Northwestern Boundary,” and his appointment
was received with universal favor. Then as now Sunnyside was already
a Mecca for travelers and, among many well known to fame, was a young
man, afterwards Napoleon the Third. Referring to his visit, Irving
wrote in 1853: “Napoleon and Eugenie, Emperor and Empress! The one
I have had as a guest at my cottage, the other I have held as a pet
child upon my knee in Granada. The last I saw of Eugenie Montijo, she
was one of the reigning belles of Madrid; now, she is upon the throne,
launched from a returnless shore, upon a dangerous sea, infamous for
its tremendous shipwrecks. Am I to live to see the catastrophe of her
career, and the end of this suddenly conjured up empire, which seems
to be of such stuff as dreams are made of! I confess my personal
acquaintance with the individuals in this historical romance gives
me uncommon interest in it but I consider it stamped with danger and
instability, and as liable to extravagant vicissitudes as one of Dumas’
novels.” A wonderful prophecy completely fulfilled in the short space
of seventeen years.
Tappan Zee, at this point, is a little more than two miles wide
and over the beautiful expanse Irving has thrown a wondrous charm.
There is, in fact, “magic in the web” of all his works. A few modern
critics, lacking appreciation alike for humor and genius, may regard
his essays as a thing of the past, but as long as the Mahicanituk,
the ever-flowing Hudson, pours its waters to the sea, as long as Rip
Van Winkle sleeps in the blue Catskills or the “Headless Horseman”
rides at midnight along the Old Post Road _en route_ for Teller’s
Point, so long will the writings of Washington Irving be remembered and
cherished. We somehow feel the reality of every legend he has given us.
The spring bubbling up near his cottage was brought over, as he gravely
tells us, in a churn from Holland by one of the old time settlers, and
we are half inclined to believe it; and no one ever thinks of doubting
that the “Flying Dutchman,” Mynheer Van Dam, has been rowing for two
hundred years and never made a port. It is in fact still said by the
old inhabitants, that often in the soft twilight of summer evenings,
when the sea is like glass and the opposite hills throw their shadows
across it, that the low vigorous pull of oars is heard but no boat is
seen.