Ichabod Crane (colonel) Ichabod Crane (colonel) Ichabod Bennet Crane (July 18, 1787 – October 5, 1857) was a career military officer for 48 years and the probable namesake of the protagonist in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". Crane was born in Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth), New Jersey. He was the son of Gen. William Crane. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1809 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant, assigned to the USS "United States", a 44-gun frigate commanded by Stephen Decatur. He served aboard the "United States" for two years. Crane resigned from the Marines in April 1812,
Ichabod Crane outshine Brom's. After the party breaks up, Ichabod remains behind for "a tête-à-tête with the heiress," where it is supposed that he makes a proposal of marriage to Katrina but, according to the narrator, "Something, however ... must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate and chapfallen," meaning that his proposal is refused, allegedly because her sole purpose in courting him was either to test or to increase Brom's desire for her. Therefore Ichabod leaves the house "with the air of one who had been sacking a henroost, rather