The play and character that remain so indelibly identified with the beloved comic character actor Joseph Jefferson III were based upon the story by Washington Irving in which the kindly, hard-drinking Rip leaves his New England colonial village to go hunting in the Catskills, encounters Henry Hudson's men and is put to sleep for 20 years, finally returning home to what has become an American town. There had been several dramatizations of the story before Jefferson began the process of creating his own version in 1860. It was the version written for Jefferson in 1865 by Dion Boucicault that held the stage during four decades.
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.