When Sampson removed to Washington in 1825, he was presented with an address from the citizens of New York, among the signers being James Kent and DeWitt Clinton. “The years after the Revolution were fruitful of steady Irish arrivals, without much of great note occurring. A careful study of the statistics of the first third of the nineteenth century, so far as they are available, would doubtless be productive of good results. By 1833 there were 40,000 Irish-born residents here, it was then estimated. This growth had been gradual, but hardly remarked, and certainly was not expected. This may well be realized when we know that the graveyard in the rear of St. Peter’s Church answered all the purposes of burial for the Irish Catholics at the outset, and, until old St. Patrick’s site was bought from St. Peter’s Church in 1801, to serve for a general Catholic burial ground. It is also worthy of note that no move for a larger cemetery was made until 1826, when the site of the present Cathedral was bought at a cost of $5,500 for that purpose by the parishes of St. Peter’s, St. Patrick’s and St. Mary’s, but was abandoned after a few years’ trial as being too far out in the country. Of course, a tremendous tide of Irish immigration set in after the famine years of 1846, 1847 and 1848. But before that time, the period of the pioneers had ceased, and that of construction had begun. It ended in New York with the arrival of Bishop John Hughes. Under his masterful guidance the position of the Irish here completely changed; from the dwarfed and apologetic attitude which many of his people had theretofore assumed, they rose to man’s estate. He asserted their rights and made them realize the justice of their appeal for fair treatment and decent consideration. He courageously defended them from unjust attack and took every possible occasion to announce the splendor of their history and the value to American citizenship of their racial characteristics. Impressing himself on the country, and finally winning its confidence, he did more than any other one man has ever done to make the Irish people an active, useful, aggressive force in the community. He pointed out the way by which they have since risen from poverty, misery and persecution—from an isolation worse than the Ghetto—to a position so commanding as to seem almost miraculous.