Researchers suspect that terrain recently uncovered in Downingtown, Pennsylvania - not far from Duffy's Cut - is a mass grave of Irish railroad workers who died in the summer of 1832.
In August 1832, a group of 57 Irish immigrants, working on the Duffy's Cut stretch of railroad about 30 miles west of Philadelphia, died during the second cholera pandemic. They were buried anonymously in a ditch outside of Malvern.
However, on November 7, 1832, the local Village Record newspaper reported that an unnamed Irish railroad worker escaped from Duffy's Cut and ran west to another Irish railroader site, about eleven miles away in Downingtown.
The Village Record reported that this Irish worker infected the other Irish railroader crew in Downingtown, causing deaths among those workers.
Subsequent research revealed violence directed against the immigrant workers at both Duffy's Cut and Downingtown.
Now, researchers from the Duffy's Cut Project believe a recently uncovered spot in Northwood Cemetery may be the mass grave of the second group of Irish railroad workers who perished in Downingtown in 1832.
The Duffy's Cut Project researchers note that in his 1909 book "History of Downingtown," Charles H. Pennypacker explained that the bodies of the Irish who died in Downingtown were buried about a mile north of the track line above Lancaster Pike.
That land became a Potter's Field and was made into Northwood Cemetery in 1872.
Pennypacker's description of precisely where those workers were buried - in a piece of terrain that was until recently covered with thick vegetation - became visible to the Duffy's Cut researchers this year on April 27, and project archaeologist Matthew Peace of US Radar located a subsurface "anomaly" at that spot.
April 27, 2025: Researchers at Northwood Cemetery on the day ground penetrating radar found the anomaly that indicated the first remains of the Irish railroad crew.
On May 15, 2025, after five years of archival and archaeological exploration, members of the Duffy's Cut team - Bill and Frank Watson and Bob McAllister - located the first human remains at the spot indicated by Pennypacker.
The first remains that were recovered from Northwood Cemetery.
Forensic specialist Dr. Matt Patterson has since identified the remains as human.
An X Ray of one of the teeth by forensic expert, Dr. Matt Patterson, showing that the teeth recovered were those of a laborer because of the wear on the tooth.
The Duffy's Cut Project researchers now say that work will be ongoing to reveal the extent of the burials and, if possible, do forensic research on the remains.
The research team's Ground Penetrating Radar expert, Matt Peace, working at Northwood Cemetery.
The Duffy's Cut Project is associated with the local Immaculata University. Though now mostly alumni, the university's dig crew, who helped find the burials at Duffy's Cut, will assist in the search at Northwood.
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