Identifier: americapicturesq02cook (find matches)
Title: America, picturesque and descriptive
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Cook, Joel, 1842-1910
Subjects: United States -- Description and travel Canada -- Description and travel
Publisher: Philadelphia : John C. Winston
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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The old house wherein he Avas im-prisoned still stands in Tappan, and his remains wereinterred there until 1821, when they were conveyedto Westminster Abbey, London. THE HOME OF WASHINGTON IRVING. Near Irvington is Sunnyside, long the home of thefamous and genial Washington Irving. In the earlydays this house was built by a cynical Dutch coun-cillor named Wolfert Acker, who inscribed over thedoor, Lust in Rust,—meaning pleasure in quiet,—whence the EngHsh called it Wolferts Roost.As the Spanish Escurial had been modelled after thefamous gridiron of the blessed Saint Lawrence, sothis loyal councillor is said to have modelled his houseafter the cocked hat of the doughty Dutch Governor,Peter the Headstrong. The old house with its quaintDutch gables became in time the castle of Baltus VanTassel, and being held by Jacob Van Tassel, an ac-tive American partisan during the Revolution, theBritish sacked and burned it. The eastern front isoverrun by ivy given Irving by Sir Walter Scott at
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A STOP THE HOME OF WASHINGTON IRVING. 143 Abbotsford, and originally from Melrose Abbey. Thegreat author lived here from 1846 until his death in1859, and his pen has immortalized the neighbor-hood. Nearby is the sequestered vale of SlaeperighHaven, famed in the Legend of the Sleepy Hollow.Not far from Tarrytown, he writes, there is a littlevalley, or rather a lap of land among high hills, oneof the quietest places in the whole world. A smallbrook glides through it Avith just murmur enough tolull one to repose ; and the occasional whistle of aquail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the onlysound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tran-quility. At the opening of this hollow, by the sideof a winding lane, stands the ancient Dutch church,which is the oldest religious house in New YorkState. It is a curious little building with a di-minutive spire enclosing a bell with the inscrip-tion, Si. Deus . Pro . Nobis . Contra . Nos . 1685 —If God for us, who against us. It was built ofbrick

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