Tarrytown

Tarrytown, New York (Enter Tarrytown's Hudson River Gallery)

Located on the banks of the Hudson at its widest point, the area that became the Village of Tarrytown was first home to Native Americans, who raised corn, squash and tobacco, fished the waters of the river and hunted in the nearby woods. The first white settlers to arrive were Dutch, and they arrived in the mid 1600s. Many of them made their living by growing wheat, as the soil in the area made it an ideal spot for growing grain.

In the last quarter of the 17th century, Tarrytown had become part of Philipsburg Manor and much of the wheat grown in the area was milled at Frederick Philipse’s mill in North Tarrytown (or Sleepy Hollow as it is now called). By the middle of the 19th century industries began to appear—a wagon and carriage factory, a shoe factory, the Woodward Steam Pump Company among them. In the early part of the 20th century, General Motors opened an assembly plant in Sleepy Hollow, which was GM’s largest such plant east of the Mississippi, and many of its workers settled in Tarrytown.

The completion of the Tappan Zee Bridge in 1955 had a profound effect on Tarrytown. Tarrytown, like other river communities had many large mansions overlooking the Hudson, and several of them were lost when the bridge was constructed. The bridge also greatly increased the traffic in and around the village.

Tarrytown was put on the national map by the capture of British spy Major John Andre in 1780 during the Revolutionary War. Andre’s capture was instrumental in America’s eventual victory. The village was put on the world map when writer Washington Irving published his story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in 1820.