Matthys Van Winkle

Steady, dreamy, and superstitious like all the long-settled Dutch families of the hollow. Keeps to the old ways and the old roads — by daylight.

Quackenbush's hop-yard (Sleepy Hollow, NY)

Hired Man — 1781–present

Pressed the orchard's apples into barrel upon barrel of sweet and hard cider; the household's homespun clothed six through four winters without buying cloth.

Sleepy Hollow Grist Mill (Sleepy Hollow, NY)

Cider Presser — 1790–1792

Rose before cock-crow to milk the herd and churn the morning's butter; the kitchen ran on what the farm made and bought almost nothing.

The Martling farm (Sleepy Hollow, NY)

Spinner — 1788–1790

Sheared the sheep each spring and carded the wool for the goodwives' wheels; the sleigh got the household to church through every drift of that winter.

Skills and tools

Practised at psalm singing, cider pressing, and quilting, with haymaking, pumpkin cultivation besides. All of it learned on the holdings of this valley, from people who had it from theirs.

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