Team 7 February 2010

Seventh-Graders Meet Ichabod's Ghost

On Friday, October 23, 2009, about 80 Chatham Middle School, Team 7 students visited the Merwin Farm House, private home of 98-year-old Esther (Faity) Tuttle, in Kinderhook.  There was also an appearance by the ghost of Jesse Merwin, also known as Ichabod Crane. 

LEFT: In front of the Merwin Farm House:  Mrs. Faity Tuttle, Samantha Wheeler, Kathlyn Martino, Jim Tuttle dressed as Ichabod Crane, Kody Skype and Liz Tucksmith.

Not really: Faity’s son Jim Tuttle dressed the part of the itinerant school teacher as children squealed when he rounded the corner carrying a birch stick and book.  Mrs. Tuttle provided donuts and cider, some historical background on her home, and even some ghost stories of her own to Mrs. Debye-Saxinger’s students who were studying Washington Irving’s "Legend of Sleepy Hollow."  Jesse Merwin, a friend of Washington Irving's, was the inspiration for Ichabod Crane, the hero of that tale. One of Jesse Merwin’s decendents, Meghan (Merwin) Mercier, was among the students and her mother, formerly Jennifer Merwin, chaperoned.  Faity’s housemate, Allene “Squeaky” Hatch gave students awaiting a tour of the historical site a mini art lesson and spoke about her own early educational days spent at a one-room school house in nearby Clermont.  The only thing missing was the Headless Horseman.