THE WALKING SACHEMS: Robert Bolton's History of the County of Westchester (1848) documented a Native American fort and burial ground near Croton Point. "The Walking Sachems of Teller's Point" were apparitions of deceased Indigenous people seen in the surrounding glens and woods. Charles M. Skinner's Myths & Legends of Our Own Land (1896) elaborated: Chief Croton fell into flames as his fort burned, "calling down the curse of the Great Spirit." In 1933, the Citizen-Register reported his spirit prowled evergreen woods and "drifted noiselessly up to Deep Hole at Nikko Inn."

VAN CORTLANDT MANOR'S GHOST ROOM: In 1900, author Marion Harland documented ghost stories from Van Cortlandt Manor. A September 1863 incident: a visiting woman awoke to see an apparition in "a brown gown, with a white handkerchief crossed over her breast, a mob cap and long ear-rings." Family members recognized the description of a deceased housekeeper from General Van Cortlandt's Peekskill residence. The Phantom Carriage: "the beat of the horses' hoofs, the rattling of the harness and the rolling of the wheels are heard distinctly" at night, with no visible cause.