Professor told the story of deaths at Duffy's Cut

John H. Ahtes III, 48, of Wallingford, a history and theology professor and archaeological detective, died at home Sunday, July 11, of a heart attack. His family had a history of heart disease.

Since 2002, Mr. Ahtes had taught at Immaculata University. For the last year he also had taught church history at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood. Before joining Immaculata, he taught at the University of Pennsylvania and La Salle and Drexel Universities.

"John's classes were always full, and his world religion class was one of the most popular courses at Immaculata," said William E. Watson, chair of the history department and a longtime friend. Students loved his sense of humor and dry wit, Watson said.

Though faculty attire had become increasingly casual, Mr. Ahtes always wore a jacket in class, Watson said.

John Grogan, Mr. Ahtes' attorney and another close friend, met him in the summer of 1989 when both were postgraduate students at Penn. "It was boiling hot, and I had on shorts," Grogan said. "John, who was 6 feet 4, had on a white suit, a Panama hat, and was carrying an umbrella."

Mr. Ahtes and Watson collaborated on the Duffy's Cut Project, an investigation into the mysterious deaths of 57 Irish immigrants in the 19th century.

The Irishmen had sailed on the John Stamp in 1832 and were recruited by a railroad contractor, Philip Duffy, when they arrived in Philadelphia. Their task was to bridge two hills with a large mound of dirt for the railroad in the southwestern part of East Whiteland Township.

The men started work in June. All were dead by the end of August.

Eventually other crews completed Duffy's Cut, a mound 150 feet high and two football fields long, which still carries SEPTA, Amtrak, and freight trains over its tracks.

What happened to the Irishmen was the stuff of legend and folklore until Mr. Ahtes and Watson began investigating their deaths. They were assisted by the discovery of a file belonging to Watson's grandfather Joseph F. Tripician, private secretary to a former president of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Information in the file led to a depression near the tracks believed to be the mass grave.

Mr. Ahtes and Watson began excavating the site in 2004 and in 2006 published the book The Ghosts of Duffy's Cut. A docudrama of the same name was produced by Tiles Films of Dublin.

Historical records verified that cholera had struck the Irishmen's camp. Mr. Ahtes, however, told an Inquirer reporter in 2007 that cholera had a 40 percent to 65 percent mortality rate, and that the deaths of all the workers suggested foul play.

Early excavation by Mr. Ahtes, Watson, and a group of students uncovered pipe stems, forks, and old railroad nails, but no mass grave. Late in 2008, the men hired a geologist with ground-penetration radar and magnetometry equipment.

Last year, the geologist discovered evidence of graves, and the crew excavated the remains of five bodies. This summer they found two more. Two of the skulls excavated last year and one of the skulls uncovered this year showed signs of violence.

A former Chester County coroner and a bone curator confirmed that one of the skulls was from an 18-year-old male, Watson said. John Ruddy, 18, was on the John Stamp's manifest as one of the passengers who disembarked in Philadelphia. It appeared the skull had been smashed with an ax, Watson said.

For the archaeological crew, the excavation was more than an intellectual exercise. Duffy's Crew descendants in Ireland want to know what happened to the men and want them to have a proper burial, Watson said.

Mr. Ahtes, whose mother was of Irish descent, told a reporter that the Irishmen had been thought of as "expendable" and died in "agony and exile."

Mr. Ahtes graduated from Nether Providence High School. He earned a bachelor's degree and master's degree in history from Penn and pursued his doctorate there. As a graduate student, he supervised undergraduates in the Penn in Prague Program. For a year, he was graduate assistant to visiting professor Conor Cruise O'Brien, an Irish politician and historian.

Before completing his doctoral dissertation, Mr. Ahtes, an only child, dropped out of Penn to care for his ailing parents until their deaths. He sacrificed his academic advancement for them, Grogan said.

Mr. Ahtes is survived by his girlfriend, Kelly Scanlon.

A Funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. Monday, July 19, at SS. Philip and James Church, 107 N. Ship Rd., Exton, where friends may call after 9:30. Burial will be in SS. Peter and Paul Cemetery, Marple Township.