Who do the villagers believe the headless horseman is

The villagers believe the headless horseman is Hessian soldier who was killed in the Revolutionary War. They believe that a cannon ball took off his head.

It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind.