Ichabod Crane Central School District in 1809, where he wrote the satire, 'A History of New York'. Later, he wrote the short stories Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow which take place regionally. The Kinderhook school district is named "Ichabod Crane". for the Irving character, Ichabod Crane, which was based on the original Kinderhook schoolmaster named Jesse Merwin. Irving and Merwin became friends in Kinderhook, where they boarded together at the Van Ness home, and the two friends continued a pen-pal correspondence for thirty years. The Columbia County Historical Society (New York) owns the original Kinderhook Schoolhouse named after the Irving character
Ichabod Crane Central School District 6 - 8. The Ichabod Crane Campus now serves all grades K-12. Kinderhook's original two elementary schools, Martin Van Buren (in the village of Kinderhook) and Martin H. Glynn (in the village of Valatie) have been deaccesssioned by the school district: The Martin Van Buren School is now Jack Shainman Gallery | The School, and the Martin H. Glynn School is now the Town Hall of Kinderhook and the Village Hall of Valatie. The total district enrollment is approximately 2,191 students with a professional staff of 220 and support staff of 140. Washington Irving lived in the Village of Kinderhook