‘Duffy’s Cut Part Two’ as teamuncovers fresh mass burial site

An archeological team who discovered the bodies of 57 Irish emigrants and railroad workers in Pennsylvania are to investigate another mass grave.
Front left to right, Eal Schandelneir, Rev. Dr. Frank Watson, Dr. William Watson. Back from left, Bob McAllister and Tom Conners. DER2815MC075Front left to right, Eal Schandelneir, Rev. Dr. Frank Watson, Dr. William Watson. Back from left, Bob McAllister and Tom Conners. DER2815MC075
Front left to right, Eal Schandelneir, Rev. Dr. Frank Watson, Dr. William Watson. Back from left, Bob McAllister and Tom Conners. DER2815MC075

The team, led by brothers Reverend Dr. Frank Watson and Dr. William Watson, have dedicated the last two decades to uncovering the truth of what happened to the Irish emigrants and Pennsylvania railroad labourers.

Duffy’s Cut is a mass grave of Irish Emigrants and railroad labourers who died of cholera and murder twenty miles west of Philadelphia in 1832.

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The ship that brought the Duffy’s Cut victims to America, the John Stamp, left the port of Derry in April of that year.

The sign marking Duffy's Cut which has been researched at Immaculata University by The Duffy's Cut Project which is an ongoing archival and archaeological search into their lives and deaths, seeking to provide insight into early 19th Century attitudes about industry, immigration, and disease in Pennsylvania.The sign marking Duffy's Cut which has been researched at Immaculata University by The Duffy's Cut Project which is an ongoing archival and archaeological search into their lives and deaths, seeking to provide insight into early 19th Century attitudes about industry, immigration, and disease in Pennsylvania.
The sign marking Duffy's Cut which has been researched at Immaculata University by The Duffy's Cut Project which is an ongoing archival and archaeological search into their lives and deaths, seeking to provide insight into early 19th Century attitudes about industry, immigration, and disease in Pennsylvania.

Within six weeks of arriving the 57 emigrants were dead.

Thanks to records kept by the ship’s captain and other documentation, 19 of the 57 labourers have been identified.

Two were from County Derry, 11 from Donegal and five from Tyrone.

Dr. Frank Watson said the second mass grave of Irish railroad workers is at Northwood Cemetery in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

Bill Watson and archeologists at teh Duffy's Cut site.Bill Watson and archeologists at teh Duffy's Cut site.
Bill Watson and archeologists at teh Duffy's Cut site.
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“This other work crew was infected in the same 1832 cholera epidemic by a man who escaped the quarantine at Duffy’s Cut. In this case too an entire Irish work crew died once again, supposedly of cholera. But no cholera outbreak ever resulted in a 100 per cent mortality rate.

“We have a record that one of the Irishmen who sailed from Derry and who ended up at Duffy’s Cut escaped the quarantine there, possibly prior to the murder of his fellow labourers.

“He ended up in the midst of another Irish work crew labouring on the railroad near Downingtown. A newspaper article from 1832 reports that this man from Duffy’s Cut infected this Irish-born crew with cholera, and that they all died and were buried in a mass grave there.”

Dr. Watson said the site eventually became a cemetery, but the area of the mass grave was never used for any future burials.

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“We have gained permission from Northwood Cemetery to locate, explore and excavate this mass grave and we hope to begin once things open up again.

“We are calling it ‘Duffy’s Cut Part Two’ and we will be looking for signs of violence on these bodies as well.

“We will be working with the same team and expect to find at least as many bodies as were found at the original site, as the normal size for a railroad work crew in that era was between 100 and 120 men. We could, in principle, have a larger mass grave at Northwood than we have at Duffy’s Cut.”

Dr. Watson said the team plan to rebury these Irish railroaders within Northwood Cemetery and have the grave marked with a proper Celtic Cross, as they did for the Duffy’s Cut victims.

He added that he hopes to return to Derry in the future to tell the story of all the railroad labourers who left from Derry and they still hope to rebury one of the Duffy’s Cut victims in the city.