Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York is the resting place of numerous famous figures, including Washington Irving, whose story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is set in the adjacent Old Dutch Burying Ground. Incorporated in 1849 as Tarrytown Cemetery, it posthumously honored Irving's request that it change its name to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

History

The cemetery is a non-profit, non-sectarian burying ground of approximately 90 acres. It is contiguous with, but separate from, the church yard of the colonial-era church that was a setting for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". The Rockefeller family estate (see Kykuit), whose grounds abut Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, contains the private Rockefeller cemetery.

Several outdoor scenes from the 1970 feature film House of Dark Shadows were filmed at the cemetery's receiving vault.

Interred

• Viola Allen (1869-1948), actress

• John Dustin Archbold (1848–1916), a director of the Standard Oil Company

• Elizabeth Arden (1878-1966), businesswoman who built a cosmetics empire

• Brooke Astor (1902–2007), philanthropist and socialite

• Vincent Astor (1891–1959), philanthropist; member of the Astor family

• Leo Baekeland (1863–1944), the father of plastic; Bakelite is named for him. The murder of his grandson's wife Barbara by his great-grandson, Tony, is told in the book Savage Grace

• Holbrook Blinn (1872–1928), American actor

• Henry E. Bliss (1870–1955), devised the Bliss library classification system

• Major Edward Bowes (1874–1946), early radio star, he hosted Major Bowes' Amateur Hour

• Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919), businessman and philanthropist. In 1918 the Carnegie Foundation established the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, now TIAA-CREF

• Louise Whitfield Carnegie (1857-1946), wife of Andrew Carnegie

• Walter Chrysler (1875–1940), businessman, commissioned the Chrysler Building and founded the Chrysler Corporation

• Francis Pharcellus Church (1839–1906), editor at the New York Sun who penned the editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"

• Kent Cooper (1880–1965), influential head of the Associated Press from 1925 to 1948

• Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823–1900), landscape painter and architect; designed the now-demolished New York City Sixth Avenue elevated railroad stations

• Maud Earl (1864–1943), British-American painter of canines

• Parker Fennelly (1891-1988), American actor

• Malcolm Webster Ford (1862–1902), champion amateur athlete and journalist; brother of Paul, he took his own life after slaying his brother.

• Paul Leicester Ford (1865–1902), editor, bibliographer, novelist, and biographer; brother of Malcolm Webster Ford by whose hand he died

• Samuel Gompers (1850–1924), founder of the American Federation of Labor

• Madison Grant (1865-1937), eugenicist and conservationist, author of The Passing of the Great Race

• Walter S. Gurnee (1805–1903), a mayor of Chicago

• Mark Hellinger (1903–1947), primarily known as a journalist of New York theatre. The Mark Hellinger Theatre in New York City is named for him; produced The Naked City, a 1948 black-and-white film noir

• Harry Helmsley (1909–1997), real estate mogul who built a company that became one of the biggest property holders in the United States, and his wife Leona Helmsley (1920-2007), in a mausoleum with a stained-glass panorama of the Manhattan skyline. Leona famously bequeathed $12 million to her dog.

• Raymond Mathewson Hood (1881–1934), architect

• Washington Irving (1783–1859), author of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle"

• George Jones (1811–1891), one of the founders of the New York Times

• Ann Lohman (1812–1878) a.k.a. Madame Restell, 19th century purveyor of patent medicine and abortions

• Darius Ogden Mills (1825–1910), made a fortune during California's gold rush and expanded his wealth further through New York City real estate

• Robertson Kirtland Mygatt (1861-1919), noted American Landscape painter, part of the Tonalist movement in Impressionism

• Whitelaw Reid (1837–1912), journalist and editor of the New York Tribune, Vice Presidential candidate with Benjamin Harrison in 1892, defeated by Adlai E. Stevenson I; son-in-law of D.O. Mills

• William Rockefeller (1841–1922), New York head of the Standard Oil Company

• Edgar Evertson Saltus (1855–1921), American novelist

• Francis Saltus Saltus (1849-1889), American decadent poet & bohemian

• Carl Schurz (1820–1906), senator, secretary of the interior under Rutherford B. Hayes. Carl Schurz Park in New York City bears his name.

• William Boyce Thompson (1869-1930), founder of Newmont Mining and financier

• Joseph Urban (1872–1933), architect and theatre set designer

• Henry Villard (1835–1900), railroad baron

• Oswald Garrison Villard (1872–1949), son of Henry Villard and grandson of William Lloyd Garrison; one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

• Paul Warburg (1868–1932), German-American banker and early advocate of the U.S Federal Reserve system.

• Worcester Reed Warner (1846–1929), mechanical engineer and manufacturer of telescopes

• Thomas J. Watson (1870–1955), transformed a small manufacturer of adding machines into IBM

• Hans Zinsser (1878–1940), microbiologist and a prolific author