Origin
The name Ichabod comes from the biblical name of the grandson of Eli the High Priest and son of Phinehas. Irving may have borrowed the name from that of Ichabod B. Crane, a captain in the US Army during the War of 1812 whom he had met in 1814 in Sackets Harbor, New York.
According to a notation by Irving, the character of Ichabod Crane was based on a schoolteacher named Jesse Merwin, whom Irving befriended in Kinderhook, New York, in 1809. According to an 1894 article in The New York Times, "it claimed by many that Samuel Youngs was the original from whom Irving drew his character of Ichabod Crane".
Read more about this topic: Ichabod Crane
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
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