The hero of the story, Ichabod Crane, is a Yankee teacher who lives in Sleepy Hollow, a Dutch enclave on the Hudson River. A suggestible man, Crane trusts the apparition stories and stories of black magic he has heard and perused. He is especially awed by the story of a ghostly headless horseman said to frequent the territory. Crane is additionally hired fighter; he courts Katrina Van Tassel generally on the grounds that she is the little girl of a rich rancher and is relied upon to get a huge legacy. Abraham Van Brunt (additionally called Brom Bones) is Crane's desirous adversary, a neighborhood most loved and a rash horseman who regularly pulls pranks on the schoolmaster. Late one night as Ichabod Crane rides home from a gathering at Katrina's home, he is all of a sudden terrified by a ghostlike headless horseman. The apparition seeks after him and heaves at him a round item that he takes to be a head however is later uncovered to have been a pumpkin. The schoolmaster is never observed in Sleepy Hollow again.