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Duffy's Cut Museum, Chester County, PA

Photo: Smallbones, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped and resized.

Sightseeing

Duffy's Cut Museum

Online home for the story of 57 Irish railroad laborers who died and were buried in a mass grave at Duffy's Cut in 1832.

Chester County, PA

About Duffy's Cut Museum

The site presents the history of Duffy's Cut, a stretch of railway in rural Chester County, Pennsylvania, built for the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad. Irish workers recruited by contractor Philip Duffy arrived in 1832, and within weeks 57 of them had died, most apparently of cholera, and were buried together. The project shares research on the mass grave, a later excavation that suggested some laborers were murdered, and the reinterment of the men at West Laurel Hill Cemetery. It also offers news, a photo archive, a blog, and ways to donate.

  • #history
  • #railroad
  • #mass grave
  • #Irish immigrants
  • #cholera

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