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170-year-old mystery uncovered in Pa.
PHILADELPHIA, Researchers say six of the Irish immigrants buried in a mass grave near Philadelphia during an 1832 cholera epidemic appear to have been victims of foul play.
Archaeologists have found signs of violence on the skeletal remains, including what could be a bullet hole in one skull and marks on another that might have been inflicted by an ax, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Four others show signs of what modern investigators would call blunt force trauma.
William Watson, a professor at Immaculata University, and his twin brother, the Rev. Frank Watson, got interested in the fate of the 57 Irish workers at Duffy's Cut in Chester County on the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad from studying their grandfather's papers. He was a secretary to the railroad president a century after the line was built.
They became suspicious because records said all 57 died of cholera a few months after arriving in Pennsylvania, an unusual mortality rate. Now, 10 years after they started the Duffy's Cut Project, they have evidence to back up their suspicions.
"They were expendable because they were Irish Catholic immigrants at the bottom of the economic ladder," Watson said. "No one was there to advocate for them."
PHILADELPHIA, Researchers say six of the Irish immigrants buried in a mass grave near Philadelphia during an 1832 cholera epidemic appear to have been victims of foul play.
Archaeologists have found signs of violence on the skeletal remains, including what could be a bullet hole in one skull and marks on another that might have been inflicted by an ax, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Four others show signs of what modern investigators would call blunt force trauma.
William Watson, a professor at Immaculata University, and his twin brother, the Rev. Frank Watson, got interested in the fate of the 57 Irish workers at Duffy's Cut in Chester County on the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad from studying their grandfather's papers. He was a secretary to the railroad president a century after the line was built.
They became suspicious because records said all 57 died of cholera a few months after arriving in Pennsylvania, an unusual mortality rate. Now, 10 years after they started the Duffy's Cut Project, they have evidence to back up their suspicions.
"They were expendable because they were Irish Catholic immigrants at the bottom of the economic ladder," Watson said. "No one was there to advocate for them."
