A remarkable incident is said to have befallen the celebrated whitewood tree near which the spy was captured. It was struck by lightning on the same day that the intelligence of General Arnold's death arrived at Tarrytown. This tree was a fine specimen of the ancient forest, being twenty-six feet in circumference, and its stem forty-one feet in length. At the present day not a vestige remains of " Major Andre's Tree," as it was familiarly called. It is thus beautifully described by the author of the Sketch Book ; "This tree towered like a giant above all the other

HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. ,

trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were knarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air. It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate Andr£, who had been made a prisoner hard by, and was univ ersally known by the name of ' Major Andre's Tree ' The common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate of its illstarred namesake, and partly from tales of strange sights, and doleful lamentations told concerning it." It was while passing beneath this whitewood tree that Ichabod Crane, in his midnight career toward Sleepy Hollow, "suddenly heard a groan, his teeth chattered, and his knees smote against the saddle. It was but the rubbing of one huge branch upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him. About two hundred yards from the tree, a small brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly wooded glen, known by the name of "Wiley's Swamp." A few rough logs laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream.