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Show New York's Debt" to the Irish. Of obvious significance is the, fact that although the Jews had a synagogue syna-gogue in New York City from 1730 there was no Catholic place of worship from the time when (Governor) Dongan had mass said within the fort until 1786. After the revolution, however, the spirit of persecution gave place to one of toleration. tol-eration. An influx of Irish Catholics now began and soon acquired such proportions pro-portions that by 1S33 it was estimated that there were 40,000 residents of Irish birth or descent on Manhattan island. As regards the quality of the inflow at that time and earlier, Justice Dowling is Justified in saying that New York owes a weighty debt of gratitude to the race which gave the state its first governor, gov-ernor, George Clinton, the son of a Longford county emigrant, and his kinsman. De Witt Clinton, the father of the Erie canal; which gave the city its first mayor, James Duane, an Irishman's Irish-man's son, and . which gave the city fame as the scene of a successful attempt at-tempt to conquer the water by steam, when the son of a Kilkenny man, Fulton, Ful-ton, saw the Clermont move up the Hudson. New York Sun. |