Listening to the radio this evening, I heard a story that moved me. It surprised me that I hadn't heard it before, and in honor of St. Patrick's Day, I will share it with you. I'll tell it the way I heard it from some band members of an Irish band called Blackthorn on WXPN radio tonight, with some fact-checking from the website.
In 1832, a group of Irish immigrants left counties Donegal, Tyrone, and Derry and came to the Philadelphia area to work for a fellow Irishman named Duffy on the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, a critically important piece of early 19th-century infrastructure that became what is now known as the "Main Line," the original railroad line around which some of the Philadelphia area's most influential communities came into existence.
Within six weeks of their arrival, they were dead. There was an outbreak of cholera among the workers, and although Nuns were dispatched from Philadelphia to tend to their health issues, the fear of the outbreak getting into the population at large and the feeling that these Irish Catholic laborers were expendable resulted in their being refused medical care.
The laborers were buried (some, apparently, before they died) in a mass grave in what is now Malvern. At the time, there were said to be only 9, but subsequent research by professors at Immaculata University indicates that there were 57 of them. A marker was dedicated to them in 2004 and stands at King and Sugartown Roads in Malvern, and the search for the mass grave itself continues.
As an Irish Catholic who has lived in this area for much of my life, I never knew this story before tonight, and it made me stop and reflect about things like prejudice and how history will judge us. If you pray on this Saint Patrick's Day, say a prayer for the 57 of Duffy's Cut, and never forget.
For more information:
Website -- http://www.duffyscutproject.com/Index.htm
Book -- http://astore.amazon.com/theduffyscutp-20/detail/0275987272/104-6109925-4407147
Film (Smithsonian Channel) -- http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/smithsonian/show_duffycut.do
That is terrible. I wish I could feel like, "At least that could never happen today," but our ongoing need/hate relationship with immigrant workers does not inspire much hope.
Posted by: sadalit | March 17, 2008 at 10:22 AM
Bump.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/08/24/pennsylvania.graves.mystery/index.html?hpt=C1
Posted by: Mike Gil | August 24, 2010 at 06:37 PM