Colton's 1867 Map of Westchester County

Westchester County
Westchester in 1860

In 1860 Westchester covered 914 square miles and was home to a population of 100,000 (the Bronx was a part of the county at the time). With the exception of Peekskill, the northern part of the county was primarily farmland. Industries included iron foundries and tobacco and gun factories along with paper, grist and sawmills, and even a gin distillery. In reading the works of one Westchester resident-Washington Irving-one might get the impression that mid-19th century Westchester was a backwater. Irving's fictional Sleepy Hollow was a sparsely populated town complete with spooky carriage tracks leading to the graveyard. The creator of the headless horseman died in 1859, never knowing that his gothic fictions were soon to be superceded by the real violence of the Civil War.

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