Irish Railworkers in Mass Grave, Buried in 1832, Discovered in Pennsylvania

[Ladybbird]

Irish Railworkers May be in Mass Grave Discovered in Pennsylvania

Testing is underway on human remains discovered at a spot in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, where it's believed Irish railroaders were buried in 1832.

IrishCentral 16 JUN 2025






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 7 November the local Village Record newspaper reported that an unnamed Irish railroad worker escaped from Duffys 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 Duffys Cut and Downingtown.

Now, researchers from the Duffys 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 Duffys 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 Potters Field and was made into Northwood Cemetery in 1872.




Pennypackers 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 Duffys Cut researchers this year on April 27, and project archaeologist Matthew Peace of US Radar located a subsurface anomaly at that spot.





The research teams Ground Penetrating Radar expert, Matt Peace, working at Northwood Cemetery.











https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObPJRNzRAq4


What Really Happened To These Railroad Workers Found In A Mass Grave?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC0dxbGX7KE