What are some unique characteristics of the setting in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"?

Sleepy Hollow is a small, isolated village near the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town in New York. Quiet, dark, and shrouded in a dreamlike mist, the little village seems caught in a spell cast by an unseen god or witch. Its residents perpetuate ghost stories and folk tales not only to imbue the town with a sense of importance or excitement, but also to warn off outsiders. Sleepy Hollow’s mystical qualities also call to mind the domain of Hypnos, the god of sleep in the Metamorphoses.
Despite its isolation, Sleepy Hollow has had its share of excitement as the site of some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War. It also derived one of its most infamous supernatural residents from this battle: the ghostly Hessian soldier known as the Headless Horseman. Since Irving sets the story’s events in 1790, the war, which had ended only seven years previously, would still have loomed large in the minds of many residents of Sleepy Hollow.
Had Irving set the tale in a city or even a slightly larger and more accessible rural township, the story would have suffered tremendously. In order for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to work, its setting has to be in an isolated location. Only in such a place can mistrust of strangers, superstition, and belief in the supernatural flourish so freely.