Engraved by the very popular John Sartain of Philidelphia, from a live sitting, as first published in the Eclectic Magazine, October 1858. This digital copy is from an actual clipping from that magazine, and part of a collection from an estate sale.

Washington Irving, born in New York City at the end of the Revolutionary War on April 3, 1783, near "Wall Street" of the present era. His parents named their son after their hero, George Washington.

He is was the first American to make a living exclusively from writing. At first, he wrote under pen names; one was "Diedrich Knickerbocker." The "Knicks" of New York derive their name from this pen name. Irving's interests included writing, architecture and landscape design, traveling, and diplomacy.

Irving enjoyed visiting different places and a large part of his life was spent in Europe, particularly England, France, Germany and Spain. He wrote often about the places he visited. His memories are reflected in the letters that he wrote to from Europe, as well as in the stories from his most famous work, The Sketch-Book. Published in 1819 under another pen name, "Geoffrey Crayon, Gent," the short stories includes The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. The lower Hudson Valley area is actually the fictional Sleepy Hollow and is near Tarrytown, N.Y. Rip Van Winkle sleeps through the entire Revolutionary War in the Catskill mountains of upstate New York.

By the late 1820s, Irving had a reputation throughout the civilized world as a great thinker and writer. Irving received many important honors because of his popularity. In 1828, the Spaniards elected him to the Real Academia de la Historia, because they were so pleased with Irving and his writing. Irving received a gold medal in history from the Royal Society of Literature in London in 1830, and received honorary degrees also from Harvard, Columbia, and Oxford.

Irving was active in the field of diplomacy. In 1842, President Tyler appointed him Minister to Spain and his travels were extensive throughout Europe as a diplomatic representative of the United States.