One of my favorite places in Sleepy Hollow is the Old Dutch Church and burial grounds. Within those grounds, you will find the headstone of Hulda of Behomia … known by some as the Bohemian Witch.
If you get the chance to come to Sleepy Hollow New York and the surrounding towns there are a lot of wonderful places to visit. If you find the time, there is a large forest, Rockefeller State Preserve that almost 1800 acres for you to explore. The area of Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown New York was a playground for some of the wealthiest people from Manhattan New York in history. The Rockefellers purchased a large amount of land that is now known as the Rockefeller State Preserve. They purchased the land to have a place to go on carriage rides and you will find 55 miles of old carriage roads just waiting for you to explore them. If you get the chance to go there you will notice some curious names of those roads like Witch Spring Road and Spook Rock. Long before they were made into carriage roads for the Rockefellers a woman from Germany chose to make this area her home.
We don’t know everything about this wonderful woman but what we do know is important to continue to hand down. A woman came here from Germany, we assume by herself. She lived alone in a cottage in the woods by the River. While her cottage isn’t still there you can still find some stone remains of where it used to be. She had a wonderful relationship with the Native Americans in the area and was quite good at weaving baskets, making herbal medicines and working in the healing arts. She likely learned a lot of what she knew from her relationship with them. It is said that those who dared walk close enough to her cottage could smell the herbs that she always had hanging in her cottage or that she worked with.
I say dare as many of you know early America had a bit of a fear of witches. You can see how quickly a woman who lived on her own and who had an affinity for working with herbs and the healing arts could get labeled a witch. Instead of a community embracing a woman who was living on her own she was feared and labeled a witch and the members of the Old Dutch Church were cautioned against going near her or her cottage.
Yet Hulda was someone who loved deeply and she did whatever she could to help the people of the town. The Revolutionary War hit the area that Sleepy Hollow occupies hard. Food and resources were quickly depleted and the population was just dwindling because people were starving and becoming ill. It wasn’t uncommon for community members to find woven baskets of medicine and food on their porches when they were sick. Unfortunately, they believed her to be a witch and believed them to be from her so many of them didn’t benefit from her kindness and generosity. When battle happened in the area they lived in Hulda picked up a rifle and marched to the sides of the men who were fighting. Unfortunately, this is where she met the end of her life story. As you can imagine a woman in the 1700s holding a rifle to help fight would stand out quickly. It wasn’t long before someone took her life on what many believe was Battle Hill. Battle Hill is located in what is now Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. After she passed away they carried her body to her cottage and found a bible next to her bed. Inside of that bible, she had left a handwritten will giving the little gold she had to the widows of the war in her town. It was then they determined that they may have misjudged her and she was allowed a Christian burial in the graveyard of the Old Dutch Church where she is today. Many believe that Hulda is the German doctor that Washington Irving referred to in his writing.
An old orange flag stick marked the spot where she was buried for many many years. In 2019 they honored her with her own stone carved in the tradition of a carver who was alive during her time so that everyone would know where she was buried.
I hope that you have the most magickal day!
Much Love and Many Blessings,
Jasmeine Moonsong
