The remains of Donegal immigrants found in a mass grave near Philadelphia will not be brought back to Ireland, it has been confirmed.
Investigations into the deaths of the 57 railway workers at Duffy’s Cut in June 1832 has found a mass grave. But it is 30 feet below existing railway lines and a full dig has been ruled out.
The men travelled from Donegal, Tyrone and Derry to follow their American Dream on board the ship John Stamp but died less than two months after their arrival. It was reported that the men died during a cholera pandemic and buried in a mass grave. Their families never knew what happened to them.
Other remains have been found – and it seems they were murdered. The remains of one will be returned to Co Donegal.
It’s report local researchers say they have a clearer picture of the men’s fate. But their massive effort to unearth, identify and properly re-inter the workers’ remains will not be realized; the grave is inaccessible, they say, and will remain undisturbed.
Enough evidence exists to prove that some of the men were murdered.
And at least one set of remains found apart from the main site might still be positively identified and returned to Ireland.
“Since the beginning, we have seen it as our job to get their story out of folklore and into actual history, and we hope we have done that,” said historian Bill Watson.
He believes that while cholera killed many of the labourers, the rest were likely victims of local vigilantes driven by anti-Irish prejudice, class warfare or intense fear of the dreaded disease.
The men had begun working for Philip Duffy on a section of track about 20 miles west of Philadelphia in June 1832. By August, they were dead.
University of Pennsylvania anthropologist Janet Monge found proof of violence in all the remains, including one skull injury that appears to be a bullet wound.
Those victims had been buried separately in coffins. But after the rest died – from disease or violence – Philip Duffy ordered the bodies dumped en masse in the railroad fill.
The location of the mass grave remained elusive until recent weeks.
Geophysicist Tim Bechtel recently used sophisticated techniques, including electrical imaging and seismic surveys, to conclude the ossuary is likely near the monument after all – but 30 feet below the surface.
It’s also on Amtrak property. The rail company will not permit any digging because of its proximity to the tracks, spokeswoman Danelle Hunter said.
“I don’t blame them for not being keen on excavating there,” Bechtel said, noting the difficulty of shoring up the rails during such an extensive dig.
That decision has ended the brothers’ field work, their plan to reclaim all of the immigrants’ remains and, through DNA tests and other analysis, fully identify and re-inter them properly.
While disappointed, brother Frank Watson said the most important point is that history will not remain buried with the men.
“We have put flesh to the bones of the story of their lives and deaths,” he said, “and their sacrifice to help build a small corner of the modern world will no longer be forgotten or hidden.”
Even if the bones were accessible, it’s likely they would be too degraded to extract DNA.
The brothers had tentatively identified one victim as 18-year-old John Ruddy, based on bone size and the passenger list of a ship that sailed from Ireland to Philadelphia four months before the men died.
That victim’s jaw also had a rare genetic anomaly – a missing upper molar that never formed – shared by some Ruddy family members in Ireland. If the DNA matches, the Watsons hope to bring Ruddy’s remains back to Donegal.
The brothers plan to bury the rest of the remains in a suburban Philadelphia cemetery around St. Patrick’s Day, March 17.
Dennis Downey, a history professor at Millersville University, said the team’s research offers valuable insight into 19th-century U.S. attitudes toward immigrants, industrial work, disease and culture.
“You see industrial history, you see immigration history, you see the broad contours of changing cultural history,” said Downey, who is also an officer in the Lancaster (Pa.) Irish American Cultural Society, which has supported the project.
Michael Collins, Ireland’s ambassador to the U.S., has visited the Duffy’s Cut site twice. In a statement to The Associated Press, Collins said he was struck by the tale of immigrants “arriving here full of optimism and hope only to die so anonymously and tragically.”
“Their story needs to be told,” Collins said. “So many from Ireland helped to build America but it was not an easy life, or an easy time.”
Indeed, the Watsons say what happened at Duffy’s Cut was not an isolated case.
Their next investigation involves another possible mass grave of Irish railroad workers about 10 miles up the tracks in Downingtown. Two other sites suggested by local historians could follow.
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