Local history professor William Watson has shared the story of first discovering Duffy’s Cut, a mysterious landmark in Malvern, as he writes in an article at The Conversation.
The Immaculata University professor and a team of students first discovered Duffy’s Cut in 2004. In the decades since, the team has continued research on the site, including new findings this past May.
Duffy’s Cut is a historic mass grave where fifty-seven Irish immigrant railroad workers died in 1832.
The causes of death remain mysterious. Original research hypothesized cholera as the cause of death, but Watson’s research reveals the workers were likely massacred.
Watson learned of the grave site from personal Pennsylvania Railroad documents passed down in his family. With permission from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and local authorities, Watson organized a team of student researchers to investigate the site.
University of Pennsylvania Museum staff trained the students on how to safely excavate human remains and local artifacts. The team used ground-penetrating radar to find the remains.
The team launched a breakthrough when they discovered evidence of violence, not a cholera outbreak. Remaining bones showed signs of an ax blow and bullet casings without any defensive wounds, supporting the theory that the workers were restrained and murdered.
William Watson theorizes that anti-immigrant sentiment spurred the massacre, particularly the fear that the migrant workers carried cholera.
More recently, Watson and his team uncovered a second mass grave in Downingtown.
Watson discovered reports of another grave through more historic documents, and the team first uncovered human remains in Downingtown in May. The new findings begin the newest stage of ongoing research into one of Chester County’s most mysterious pieces of local history.
Read more about William Watson and the professor’s decades of research on Duffy’s Cut in The Conversation.
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