Politics
For This Headless Horseman, October Is the Busiest Month
Hugh Francis plays the famous role from the Washington Irving story in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., where the tale is set.
Good morning. It’s Friday. Today we’ll meet a man who will saddle up to play the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow this weekend in the very place where the famous short story was set. We’ll also find out why violence has surged in New York City’s juvenile jails.
Hugh Francis as the Headless Horseman.Credit…via James Logan
Before he lost his head, the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow had not had two hips and a knee replaced. He had never raced an airplane or a car.
But Hugh Francis, who plays the headless horseman in the very place where the Washington Irving story was set — Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., about 30 miles from Midtown Manhattan — has two nearly new hips and new knee (“I’m running on used parts,” he said). And he (and his horse) beat the airplane (a World War I-era biplane) and the car (a Model T) in a Massachusetts race.
Though Francis is 89, he will gallop tomorrow night and again on Sunday night through where the story says the headless horseman was buried — the cemetery where Irving himself was buried, next to the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow.
“Most people look at this as some guy in a black coat riding around on a horse,” he said.
Some in the crowd may wonder if the notorious ghost really lobbed that pumpkin at Ichabod Crane, the gullible schoolmaster who suffered impossible heartbreak before the terrible ride. Some may have heard a high school English teacher call “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle” America’s first short stories.
