Dead Air Valley

Dead Air Valley

By Dead Air ValleyHistory
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Dead Air Valley episodes

  • The Horseman Was Real Enough: Sleepy Hollow's True Story
    Silas Van Wyck sorts the paperwork in Sleepy Hollow.
    Washington Irving invented the Headless Horseman. But the war underneath the story was real: a Hessian decapitation reported by an American general, a British spy stopped near Tarrytown with West Point in his boot, a colonial churchyard from 1685, and a woman named Hulda who became a headstone in 2019 without leaving a documented life. Then, in 1996, the village voted to rename itself after the ghost.
    Dead Air Valley covers the Hudson Valley: its history, its legends, and the paperwork underneath both. Stay boring, but keep it bizarre.
    Sources and further reading:
    Britannica, The Sketch Book: https://www.britannica.com/print/article/547468
    Library of Congress, Books That Shaped America: https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-13-005/books-that-shaped-america-on-amazon/2013-01-22/
    Smithsonian Magazine, Irving and the yellow fever summer: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-legend-sleepy-hollow-tells-us-about-contagion-fear-and-epidemics-180953192/
    City of White Plains, Battle Hill walking guide: https://www.cityofwhiteplains.com/DocumentCenter/View/2182/Historic-Walking-Loop---Battle-Hill?bidId
    New York State Archives, pass found on Major John Andre: https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/objects/10641
    Historic Hudson Valley, Old Dutch Church: https://hudsonvalley.org/explore-area/listing/listing/old-dutch-church
    Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, famous interments: https://sleepyhollowcemetery.org/about-us/famous-interments/
    Sleepy Hollow Country, Hulda the Witch: https://sleepyhollowcountry.com/hulda-the-witch/
    Village of Sleepy Hollow NY Forward Strategic Investment Plan (Dec 2023): https://ar.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2024-05/NYF_1_Sleepy_Hollow_Strategic_Investment_Plan.pdf
    WAMC, Elizabeth Bradley interview (Oct 24, 2020): https://www.wamc.org/2020-10-24/washington-irvings-headless-horseman-of-sleepy-hollow-turns-200
    0 min
  • The Four-Way Stop: John Jay’s Spy Corner and the 1946 Land Grab
    At a quiet four-way stop in the Hudson Valley, the ordinary present sits on top of older schemes. In Episode 1, Reporting from the Uncanny Valley links a modern gray roadside scene to John Jay’s 1777 Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies and to whispered 1946 land deals by the local “High-Hats.” With Silas Van Wyck on the air, a patch of cracked pavement becomes a crossroads of suspicion, power, and buried history.
    4 min
  • The Four-Way Stop: John Jay’s Spy Corner and the 1946 Land Grab
    At a quiet four-way stop in the Hudson Valley, the ordinary present sits on top of older schemes. In Episode 1, Reporting from the Uncanny Valley links a modern gray roadside scene to John Jay’s 1777 Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies and to whispered 1946 land deals by the local “High-Hats.” With Silas Van Wyck on the air, a patch of cracked pavement becomes a crossroads of suspicion, power, and buried history.
    4 min

About Dead Air Valley

From the publisher's feed

Dead Air Valley explores the strange history, local legends, forgotten places, and unsettling stories of the Hudson Valley and the regions around it. From Sleepy Hollow and old river towns to…