Irish rail workers' grave in East Whiteland too close to tracks to be excavated

The discovery of what researchers believe is the mass grave of 51 Irish railroad workers who died mysteriously in 1832 has turned out to be more than a victorious high point in a 10-year investigation.

It is the end.

The Duffy's Cut Project in East Whiteland Township will come to a close in the next several months because the mass grave is too close to railroad tracks used by Amtrak and SEPTA to be excavated.

"We feel like we are leaving [the workers] behind, but there's nothing that can be done without jeopardizing the railroad," said William Watson, co-director of the project and a professor at Immaculata University.

The milestojone in the long research project is a bittersweet end for a team that has been investigating the workers' death since 2002. That year Watson, and his twin brother, the Rev. Frank Watson, also a historian and co-director, read a secret file left to them by their grandfather who had been a private secretary to the president of what was then the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Information in the file about the men and the burial site led to woods near Sugartown and King Roads in East Whiteland Township.

What the research team pieced together was the story of 57 men who emigrated from Ireland in 1832, arrived in Chester County to work on the railroad, and died about eight weeks later, most of cholera. A woman, likely a washer woman who cared for the men at the work camp, died with them.

The findings also indicated something sinister, the likelihood of violence. Five skulls unearthed in a burial ground near the mass grave, on a site believed to be the workers' encampment, show signs of blunt trauma, researchers say. One of the skulls has a hole that might be from a bullet.

Researchers say they believe some of the workers were the victims of violence rooted in prejudice and the fear of the spread of cholera.

Their lives unfolded at a time when immigrant workers were outsiders in local communities and at the mercy of the local contractors who hired them, said Walter Licht, a University of Pennsylvania professor and a railroad historian. Incidents of "tension, mayhem, and disorder" were not uncommon, Licht said.

The research team had sought not only to tell the workers' story, but to give them a proper burial.

In September, the investigation took a turn.

Researchers found evidence that the mass grave was likely 30 feet below a monument erected in 1870 near the tracks to honor the workers. The location earlier had been discounted because of historical reports indicating the burial ground was several blocks away.

Supporting that theory was the team's earlier discovery of skulls, bones, and other findings accounting for seven workers at a site away from the monument. Researchers said they believed the mass grave for the remaining 51 workers was nearer that site and not the railroad track monument.

But a radar scan of the site around the monument performed in September indicated the presence of low-density material consistent with decayed organic matter, said Timothy Bechtel, a geophysicist and research team member.

He said he believed that the 51 workers were originally buried in a mass grave near the other seven but were moved close to the tracks when the railroad restructured that section in 1870. That is also the date that a wooden monument, later replaced by a stone memorial, was erected.

The result could be the first time railroad workers who died on the job were buried near the railroad that they helped build, a practice that later became common, Frank Watson said.

Licht called the team's work "remarkable."

"They've uncovered a slice of American history that wouldn't appear in normal textbooks," Licht said.

The Watsons and their crew plan to continue their work.

They have discussed working at the Northwood Cemetery in Downingtown where they said they believed another group of Irish workers was buried and were considering another site in Spring City.

"My late colleague [John Ahtes, a research team member who died during the project] said he believed there were hundreds of Duffy's Cuts," William Watson said.

In the meantime, researchers are wrapping up their work. Artifacts will be kept at a museum at Immaculata. Most of the bones will be buried at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Lower Merion Township. A special ceremony will be held around St. Patrick's Day next year. A limestone cross, specially built in Ireland, will mark the grave.

But one group of bones may not end up at West Laurel Hill. They are the remains of the one worker researchers said they believed they had identified: John Ruddy, a teenager who emigrated with the group in 1832. A family member traveled from Ireland last year to learn about the project.

The team hopes to ship John Ruddy's remains to Ireland for burial there.