Jews assembled for a historic event. Noah led a large procession headed by Masons, a New York militia company, and municipal leaders to St. Paul's Episcopal Church. Here, there was a brief ceremony — including a singing of the psalms in Hebrew — the cornerstone was laid on the communion table, and the new proclamation establishing the refuge was read. "Proclamation – day ended with music, cannonade and libation. 24 guns, recessional, masons retired to the Eagle Tavern, all with no one ever having set foot on Grand Isle." This was the beginning and the end of Noah's venture: he lost heart and returned to New York two days later without once having set foot on the island. The cornerstone was taken out of the audience chamber of the church and laid against the back of the building. It is now on permanent display at the Buffalo Historical Society in Buffalo, New York. Afterwards, despite the failure of his project, he developed the idea of settling the Jews in Palestine and, as such, he can be considered a forerunner of modern Zionism. From 1827 to 1828, Noah led New York City's Tammany Hall political machine. In his writings he alternately abhorred and supported southern slavery. He worried that emancipation would irreparably divide the country. MacArthur Award-winning cartoonist Ben Katchor fictionalized Noah's scheme for Grand Island in his The Jew of New York. Noah is also a minor character in Gore Vidal's 1973 novel Burr. The modern edition of Noah's writings is The Selected Writings of Mordecai Noah edited by Michael Schuldiner and Daniel Kleinfeld, and published by Greenwood Press. Bibliography 1813 – 1814: Travels in England, France, Spain, and the Barbary States 1837 : Discourse of the Evidence of the American Indians being the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israël 1844: Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews References Sources Selig Adler & Thomas E. Connolly. From Ararat to Suburbia: the History of the Jewish Community of Buffalo (Philadelphia: the Jewish Publication Society of America, 1960, Library of Congress Number 60-15834). Mordecai Manuel Noah: Travels in England, France, Spain, and the Barbary States: In the Years 1813-14 and 15 Isaac Goldberg, Major Noah: American-Jewish Pioneer, The Jewish Publication Society of Philadelphia, 1936. Michael Schuldiner and Daniel J. Kleinfeld, The Selected Writings of Mordecai Noah, Greenwood Press, 1999. IsraIsland. Nava Semel, 2005. External links Online books by Mordecai Manuel Noah