Historian uncovers evidence of second mass grave of Irish immigrant railroaders in Pennsylvania who suffered from cholera, violence and xenophobia

When commuters at the R5 SEPTA teach that connects suburban Chester County to Philadelphia way Malvern station, they may spot a sq. stone monument at the proper facet in a clearing surrounded through a thick arise of jungle.

Above it, an indication paid for through the Amtrak electrical workers union and suspended from the bushes reads:

BURIAL PLOT OF IRISH RAILROAD WORKERS: At this web site, referred to as Duffy’s Shorten, fifty-seven Irish immigrant railroad employees from the counties of Donegal, Tyrone, Derry and Leitrim died of cholera and homicide in the summertime of 1832.

I’m a historian at Immaculata College, about one mile west of Duffy’s Shorten. In 2004, my colleagues and I had been those to find the collection grave after we excavated the web site with the permission of the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Fee.

My scholars, who had been about the similar week as Duffy’s employees in 1832, equipped a stunning do business in of the exertions on the excavation.

Extra lately, in Would possibly 2025, we came upon human residue that recommend a 2d Irish immigrant railroader collection grave 11 miles west of Duffy’s Shorten, in Downingtown.

57 useless railroaders

Duffy’s Cut used to be named upcoming an Irish Catholic immigrant railroad contractor named Philip Duffy, who lived from 1783-1871 and used to be most certainly from County Donegal in northwest Eire.

I discovered concerning the web site and its imaginable collection grave from Pennsylvania Railroad paperwork that survived in my community.

A 1909 record, categorized “History of Duffy’s Cut Stone enclosure east of Malvern, Pennsylvania, which marks the burial place of 57 track laborers who were victims of the cholera epidemic of 1832,” used to be compiled through pace Pennsylvania Railroad president Martin W. Clement when he used to be an assistant supervisor. My grandfather, who used to be Clement’s government worker and then director of workforce, acquired the record earlier than the information had been auctioned off in 1972, and my brother confirmed me the record in 2002.

The Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad, the predecessor of the Pennsylvania Railroad, sought after to scale down the walk moment from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh from 3 to 4 weeks through Conestoga wagon to a few to 4 days through rail, canal and river.

The record my brother had in his ownership mentioned that the useless railroaders at Duffy’s Shorten had been younger males, lately arrived from Eire. It additionally mentioned the price of mile 59 used to be hugely costlier than the standard Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad mile. Laying an ordinary mile of P&C railroad value US$5,000 within the 1830s. However at mile 59, gouging the park with a “cut” to put the tracks on degree floor and bridging the valley with a fill – an earthen bridge – value $32,000. Despite the fact that the paintings used to be particularly tricky, the habitual laborers won about 25 cents a life.

Many of the males had sailed from town of Derry within the north of Eire to Philadelphia from April to June of 1832 aboard the John Stamp. The send pulled into the Lazaretto quarantine station at the Delaware River in Essington, Pennsylvania, earlier than crusing directly to Philadelphia.

No one on the John Stamp used to be reported to be unwell. This used to be the peak of the 1832 cholera epidemic that in the long run killed at least 10,000 people within the U.S.

40-seven laborers from the John Stamp send joined 10 alternative Irish immigrant employees who had been already dwelling with Duffy in a apartment space in Willistown, a mile south of the paintings web site.

But virtually once they arrived to the paintings camp at mile 59, so did cholera, which had unfold to Philadelphia from Brandnew York Town.

Cholera within the camps

American citizens may learn concerning the unfold of cholera throughout Europe in 1831 within the newspapers, however very tiny used to be identified concerning the condition till a long time then.

Cholera is a bacterial disorder that spreads because of beggarly sanitary practices wherein human feces get into drinking water, by the use of excrement handed into streams or through seepage from outhouses to wells.

However in 1832, society believed cholera used to be related to intemperance and vice, which have been idea to weaken the frame. Consistent with the prevalent miasma principle, it led to outbreaks as soon as airborne. Immigrants and the beggarly had been considered particularly prone to the condition and primary vectors for its spread.

Cholera reasons last diarrhea and vomiting that supremacy to speedy electrolyte loss. In 1832 it used to be miserable in about 50% of circumstances. Within the Delaware Valley, cholera circumstances fastened from July into August 1832. Philadelphia registered its height selection of circumstances, 173, on Aug. 6 and height selection of deaths, 76, on Aug. 7. The toughest-hit boxes within the area had been working-class neighborhoods and canal and railroad work camps.

A regular staff on a P&C mile numbered 100 to 120 males. On the other hand, the paintings through Irish immigrants used to be segregated alongside sectarian traces at the railroads within the U.S., because it used to be within the Belfast dockyards on the similar moment. The alternative part of the employees at mile 59, in step with Canal Fee stories, had been Irish Protestant immigrants who labored for an Irish Protestant contractor and did the fewer bad paintings of laying tracks. They didn’t die of cholera.

Indicators of a bloodbath

To excavate the web site, we partnered with the Chester County Emerald Folk, a regulation enforcement staff that cleared our paintings with the county district lawyer, and the coroner, in case we discovered human residue. The College of Pennsylvania Museum equipped ground-penetrating radar, in addition to archaeological and anthropological support for the dig. Personnel skilled my scholars in the right way to correctly excavate and handle artifacts and bones.

Our analysis group exposed seven units of residue between 2009 and 2012 within the too much japanese parts of the fill. The skeletons have been buried in coffins sealed with an outstanding selection of nails, possibly to include the cholera.

Research on the UPenn Museum confirmed proof of violence to every of the skulls – with one cranium appearing each an ax blow and a bullet encased within the cranium. Researchers discovered refuse proof of defensive wounds on any skeleton, suggesting that the boys would possibly were tie up earlier than being killed.

Next our group analyzed the residue, we got here to the startling conclusion that the boys didn’t die from cholera – they had been massacred.

I consider that concern of cholera, a virus that some priests in The us and England known as “a chastisement for the sins of the people,” and anti-immigrant sentiment fueled violence in opposition to them through native-born populations.

Next forensic examinations of the residue, five of the skeletons were reburied throughout a rite at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd in 2012. My group ambitious the identities of 2 of a dead body – 18-year-old John Ruddy from County Donegal and 29-year-old Catherine Burns, the daughter of probably the most employees, from County Tyrone – and their residue had been returned to their house counties in Eire in 2013 and 2015.

A 2d collection grave in Chester County

Historic information led us to what we consider is a 2d collection grave in Chester County.

An editorial within the Nov. 7, 1832, factor of the Village File newspaper in West Chester reported that one guy from Duffy’s Shorten fled westward indisposed the incomplete observe layout to some other Irish immigrant railroader staff “near the line of East Bradford and East Caln.”

This used to be P&C mile 48 in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. It used to be underneath the path of Irish immigrant contractor Peter Connor, whose staff of 100 to 120 males used to be reported to have all died around the same time as Duffy’s crew.

40 years then, Charles Pennypacker’s 1909 “History of Downingtown” recorded that the useless Irishmen in Downingtown had been carted north to a garden the place they had been buried in a collection grave at the component of present-day Northwood Cemetery, “in the eastern part of the cemetery, near the gully.”

On Would possibly 15, 2025, the Duffy’s Shorten group unearthed the first human remains from the Downingtown staff within the actual playground reported through Pennypacker. This paintings has simply began.

Up and indisposed the East Coast, there are diverse collection graves of nameless employees who died of epidemics and overwork within the 1820s and 1830s. Maximum of the ones society won’t ever have their tales advised.

At Duffy’s Shorten, and now on the Downingtown web site, we are hoping to humanize one of the hardworking immigrants who died development a a very powerful a part of The us’s business park.

Guests can view artifacts discovered at Duffy’s Shorten on the Duffy’s Cut Museum within the Gabriele Library at Immaculata College in Malvern, Pa.

Learn extra of our tales about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.