Everybody knows the Headless Horseman. Hardly anybody knows the woman in white. She's been haunting the same Westchester woods for more than 200 years, at least in the stories. And if the old tale is right, she's a ghost who's actually on your side.
She's in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
Washington Irving published "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" in 1820. Late in the story, Ichabod Crane goes to a big party at the Van Tassel farm. Some of the guests are from Sleepy Hollow, and they start trading ghost stories. There are tales about funeral trains. There are cries near the big tree where Major André was caught.
Then comes her moment. Irving writes about "the woman in white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow."
That's it. One line. Right after it, the talk turns to the Headless Horseman, and he steals the show. She never got her sequel.
An 1897 Book Filled In the Rest
Seventy-seven years later, a writer named Edgar Mayhew Bacon put more of her story on paper. His book, "Chronicles of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow," came out in 1897. Even Bacon says he's passing it along. His words: "so we have read."
Here's his version. A woman wandered off the path in a blinding snowstorm. She tried to get out of the wind in the ravine behind Raven Rock. The snow drifted in on top of her. She fell asleep and never woke up.
Bacon also explains the rock itself. He says Raven Rock is a piece of the steep east side of Buttermilk Hill. A deep crack split it off from the rest of the hill long ago. Then, in his words, it "set up a mythology of its own."
And the ravens? Bacon wrote that you couldn't find any around there in his day. His guess was that the crows drove them out.
She's Not the Rock's Only Ghost
Bacon says the woman in white has company. He mentions a Native American girl who died because of a jealous lover, and he says her story is even older. Then there's a third ghost, a colonial woman running from a Tory raider during the Revolution.
Bacon himself called all three "nebulous legends." So nobody is claiming these are history. They're stories people told about one spooky rock, and they've been told for a long time.
People Say Her Screams Are a Warning
This is the part that makes her different. The story goes that she meets late hikers with cries that sound like the wind. Her gestures look like sweeping snowdrifts. In the story, she's not trying to scare you off for fun. She's warning you away from the place that killed her.
Bacon liked her for that. He wrote that he knew of many ghosts, "but none I think of so kindly" as this one. Honestly, that's a pretty great review for a ghost.
You Can Hike to Raven Rock
Raven Rock is real (the park spells it Raven's Rock). It's in Rockefeller State Park Preserve, on the quieter east side of the park called the Buttermilk Hill area. New York State Parks calls the rock "a deeply fissured and fractured cliff." Its own trail, Raven's Rock, is 0.43 miles long, and the rock is stop number 12 in the park's destinations guide.
The guide has fun with it too. It says the spot will amaze you "even if you DO NOT see the legendary resident ghost." The park even reprints Bacon's Raven Rock story in its "Hulda and Other Legends" booklet.
The Preserve is open all year, dawn to dusk. Parking is $6 per car, and the main entrance is at 125 Phelps Way in Pleasantville. Dogs have to stay on a leash. Grab the park's trail map before you go. The park itself says the Buttermilk Hill trails are "more isolated and wilder."
So go in daylight, bring a friend, and listen to the wind. If it starts sounding like screaming, you already know what she'd tell you.
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