Both were engaged in congenial pursuits, and their residences being only a short distance apart, the author of the " Sketch Book " frequently visited the " Old School House," in which " Squire Merwin " was employed in teaching the young idea how to shoot, and subsequently immortalized his name by making him the hero of one of his inimitable tales -- "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

Every one who has read that inimitable legend -- and what lover of genuine humor has not ? -- will remember that hapless wight, Ichabod Crane, and his terrible adventure with the " Headless Horseman." Mr. Merwin was the original of that character, in the portrayal of which Irving's matchless fancy glows and sparkles as brilliantly ichauoa crane.* as in almost anything he ever penned.

The following letter will show how intimate Irving was with Merwin, the teacher of the " Old School House."

ONE OF IRVING'S LETTERS.

(Kinderlwok Correspondence of the Albany Express.)

While seated last evening in the library of the friends whose guest I had the fortune to be, looking over some famous autograph letters, I came across one written thirty years ago by Washington Irving to Jesse Merwin, of this village. Irving was a great admirer of Kinderhook in the long ago, and used to spend months enjoying its moral and social delights. Merwin was the village pedagogue, and was the original Ichabod Crane in Irving's " Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The letter to which I allude is so charming and flowing, so rich in that eloquent description which was a graceful characteristic of the purest writer in American literature, that I obtained a copy of it by kind permission, and here it is :