Death at Duffy's Cut

Philadelphia1, once the second-largest city in the British Empire, is still a major American metropolis, with its 1.4 million city-dwellers and almost six million suburbanites living in the surrounding hills and valleys. Every day people venture in their hundreds of thousands over congested roads, or by rail and trolley2, to the three-centuries-old 'City of Brotherly Love', where 18th-Century brick built by Quaker foresight stands cheek-by-jowl with modern towers of glass and steel.


If you are a commuter from Malvern, PA, headed into Center City during a Monday rush hour, you have two choices: drive along Lancaster Avenue, or take the R5 railway. It would be a philosophical executive indeed who, shifting uneasily on his leather interior at the fifth consecutive gridlocked intersection on the 1795-built Lancaster Turnpike, would stop to hear in his mind the frantic gobbling of huge flocks of turkeys, once unwilling participants in a one-way trip to market down the first major highway in the US3. He is more likely to be cursing the bus driver in front of him.

To avoid the 70 mile per hour bumper-to-bumper of the Schuylkill Expressway, it is better, though not cheaper, to take the R5, SEPTA's regional rail transport4. A train making local stops will take about 45 minutes to go from Malvern to 30th Street Station, and if you are careful and use the businessman's dodge of opening a laptop, you need not interact with the other passengers or run the risk of eye contact. And it is safe. This is, after all, the Main Line - noted not only for its historical significance as one of the first railway lines in the country, but also synonymous with the affluence and social stature of those who dwell near its stations. Ardmore, Villanova, Bryn Mawr, St Davids: these are names to conjure with, names that are associated with those who are ushered in the front door rather than sent round to the trade entrance.

Turn on your laptop, Mr Executive, pretend to be busy, study your spreadsheet as the R5 moves fairly quickly (unless it is fall, and there are wet leaves on the track5) towards your daily appointment schedule, and ignore, ignore, ignore the song of the rails beneath the cry of 'Next stop, Wayne6!'. For when you ride to work in Philadelphia, you are riding over history.

You may also be riding over an Irishman's grave.

Paddy Works on the Railway

In eighteen hundred and forty-two, I left the ould world for the new,
Bad cess to the luck that brought me through, to work upon the railway.- Traditional

In the 1830s, Americans were building their first railways. The Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad in particular was building what came to be known as the Main Line of Public Works out of Philadelphia, on to Columbia in Lancaster County, and further west to Pittsburgh. The first stretch, 82 miles long, was completed in 1834. At first the trains were pulled by horses; later, they were drawn by steam-driven locomotives.

Competition was fierce – the country was growing, there was a hunger for movement, to get there faster, to gather wealth, build, and realise ambitions. The new technology of railways was a key part of that. The railroads needed to be built quickly, over rough terrain, through mountains, and across rivers.

There were no bulldozers. Every foot of track had to be laid by hand. If there was a ditch, it had to be filled with a shovel. If there was a rock, it had to be shifted - if not with a block and tackle, then by crude explosive. Laying this track was pitiless, backbreaking labour, in all weathers, sun-up to sun-down in sweltering summer and subzero winter, dangerous work, requiring a great deal of stamina and fitness. Only a desperate man would take on such a job.

There were plenty of desperate men in Ireland.

In the spring of 1832, 57 men from Donegal, Tyrone, and Derry read the same advertisement in a newspaper. They packed their things, went to the wharf in Derry, and boarded the John Stamp, a ship headed for America. So far, we know the names of fifteen of them, in their late teens and early twenties. On arrival in Philadelphia, the immigrants, unskilled labourers all, were hired by a contractor named Philip Duffy to work on Mile 59 of the new railroad. They went to live in a large shanty by the side of Duffy's Cut.

The men must have considered themselves lucky to have been hired like that, right off the boat. This was the first step to a new life: a chance to make something of themselves, to get ahead, to send money home. If the work was hard, the rewards were relatively great. This was what was called 'the American dream'. For every one of these young men, the dream would last just six weeks. By August, they would be lying in an unmarked grave.

No Irish Need Apply

To understand why these men lived and died in such an isolated fashion – victims of criminal negligence at best, and fear-borne violence at worst – we need to look at the time and place.

Irish immigration had not yet reached the flood tide that would come in the next decade, when The Great Hunger would reduce the population in the homeland by two million from death and emigration. However, the Irish, forced by need, were already pouring into American ports, and they were particularly unwelcome. Why?

One reason was religion: the year before the arrival of the Duffy's Cut workers, an anti-Irish Catholic riot had broken out in Philadelphia on the occasion of an Irish Protestant Orange Day parade. This riot presaged the 1844 Nativist riots, also directed against Irish Catholics.

Another reason lies in the peculiar notion of 'race' held in the 19th Century. Oddly enough, these Philadelphians - descendants of Germans, Englishmen, Sephardic Jews, Welsh, Anglo-Irish - believed that the 'mere Irish' were not quite as human as other people. Qualities were attributed to them that went beyond the prejudices engendered by ethnic differences, akin to the way many people of that same time viewed African-Americans7. Illustrations from the time show the way the new immigrants were seen.

Creatures such as this were only good for doing work no 'white' man would do8. They were useful, but they were also expendable.

Plague and Horror

'Were they taken by the sickness, were they hunted down like scum?...was it cholera or murder?'– Wally Page, Duffy's Cut

In the summer of 1832, the Second Cholera Pandemic reached the Delaware Valley from far-off India. 900 people died but nobody knew what the disease vectors were. There was fear and panic. People cared for their families, their friends, their neighbours, and feared the stranger who might be carrying death with him.

The first three victims in the crowded little railway camp were given a decent burial by Philip Duffy. After that, the disease spread too quickly. No one was there to tend to these unwanted strangers – only Duffy's blacksmith and some Sisters of Charity from the city came to help. When all the rest were dead, the blacksmith tossed the bodies in the ditch beside the tracks, and covered them as best he could, without ceremony. The Sisters of Charity made their painful way home to Philadelphia, unaided by terrified and hostile locals.

The death of these men is sad, but why should it be horrible? 900 people died in the Valley that summer. Why point the finger of blame at Malvern?

The death rate from cholera is about 30%. Some die, more recover. The death rate at Duffy's Cut was 100% – there were no survivors.

Which is why forensic archaeologists are now combing the woods in Malvern, saying to themselves, 'If we find bullets...'

What did the frightened citizens of Willistown Township do when the desperate workers came knocking on their doors for help? We know they turned them away – the historical marker for the mass grave admits as much, admits that prejudice and negligence were at work. Was it worse than that?

Was there murder done at Duffy's Cut? Did the neighbours, or the railway, solve their problems with a gun? Is it possible, as some suspect, that some of them were buried alive?

This is what we wish we knew for certain, how deep the crime went – indifference or violence. We may never find out. Then again, we might – if Dr William Watson has his way.

The Ghosts of Duffy's Cut

The story of the men who died at Duffy's Cut has always been known in Malvern. As early as 1834, when the railway was finished, a man walking along the tracks swore he looked down and saw 'the dead Irishmen dancing on their grave'. People avoided the area.

In 2000, William Watson, an historian, and his colleague Tom Conner were sitting in Watson's office at Immaculata University, a Catholic institution about a mile from Duffy's Cut. It was Ember Night – a time when some believe that lost souls appear from Purgatory. In the twilight, Watson and Conner both saw three shining figures which then disappeared.

Less spectacularly, Watson's brother, Lutheran pastor Frank Watson, had something to show him: the suppressed records of the events at Duffy's Cut, inherited from their grandfather, a railway official.

The Watsons assembled a team of experts and began a six-year search for the remains of the 57 men. At first sponsored only by a local society, they have now gained international attention for their efforts. Using state-of-the-art techniques, they have located the remains of the Duffy camp. In March 2009, they unearthed the first human remains, and DNA tests were planned.

At the time of writing, it is not clear whether the victims of Duffy's Cut will be reinterred in America or Ireland. It is also not clear whether the true story will be revealed by science – whether it can be known how each man died. The Watsons, who feel a personal responsibility for this matter, intend to do their best to find the answers, and to see that these remains lie in consecrated ground.

In 2004, a marker was placed by the Commonwealth at the corner of King and Sugartown Roads, a way of reminding the passer-by that something had happened here, something of which people were not proud.

Today the wheels of the R5 continue to roll, carrying people to work every day on the tracks that cost those lost immigrants their lives. The commuter sighs and turns off his laptop to save the battery. He looks out the window at the passing landscape, notes the names.

The wheels beneath him clatter. They say, remember, remember, remember...

When you view an accomplishment, a monument to human achievement, remember: not all the names are on the plaque, and not everyone made it to the ribbon-cutting. Remember that what you enjoy is built on the sacrifice of others. Remember that injustice throws a long shadow - that ignorance, prejudice, and blind fear can exact a terrible toll.


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1 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States of America.
2 In this case, trolley refers to a tram-like vehicle that travels on rails and draws its power supply from overhead lines.
3 The reputation of turkey drovers was particularly unsavoury. They got their own taverns, which are now railway stops.
4 SEPTA, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, are responsible for the trains and trolley around Philadelphia, with R5 being one of several regional lines.
5 At which point the train will frequently miss the station, causing inconvenience to passengers, who must walk back.
6 Wayne Junction, named after General 'Mad Anthony' Wayne.
7 The founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, himself the son of a landlord with Irish holdings, viewed the native Irish with suspicion, although he was very complimentary about his new neighbours, the Lenape.
8 For the history of the long climb to acceptance faced by the Irish, see How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev, published by Routledge in 1996.