Innkeeper

The Headless Horseman Tavern is the last lit window on the haunted post-road, and the keeper runs all of it. You own the house: the taps, the rooms, the day-book, the staff, and the tone of the fireside.

The work

• Draw the cider and small-beer and keep the house stocked through the season.
• Set the fires, keep the rooms, and turn the beds for the road trade.
• Tally the day-book nightly to the stiver.
• Manage a staff of five: cook, two ostlers, fiddler, yard boy.
• Set the tone of the fireside — the ghost stories are stock in trade, and the teller-in-chief is you.

Context

• The owner rides in monthly to review the books; everything between visits is yours.
• Staff of five under you; trade is steady the year round.
• Pay is £45–60 New York currency per annum (~$110–150 in silver dollars), with rooms and board at the house.
• Resident and in-person: the post is the house, and the house is open until the last customer leaves.

Recorded in the parish register of Sleepy Hollow, autumn of 1799.

• Has kept a public house, a mess, or a very large table before.
• Honest with a day-book to the last stiver.
• A steady head at midnight, whatever the road outside sounds like.

Not a fit if you want your evenings, or if the road outside after dark is something you would rather not hear.

A creaking roadside inn on the haunted post-road, pouring cider and small-beer since 1770.

Who we are

Staff of six: keeper, cook, two ostlers, a fiddler on frolic nights, and a yard boy. Trade is steady the year round — the legend of the Galloping Hessian is our best salesman, for nobody rides past after dusk without stopping for one more.

How we work

The fire is lit from first dark to last customer, the day-book is tallied nightly to the stiver, and the ghost stories are stock in trade rather than a distraction from it. Staff sleep in; nobody here is asked to walk home in the dark.

Who thrives here

People with a steady head at midnight, whatever the road outside sounds like, and no objection to crossing the yard after dusk — which is most of several jobs here.

Recorded in the parish register of Sleepy Hollow, autumn of 1799.