Dead Of Duffy's Cut Given Overdue Funeral

Philadelphia Daily News:

The investigation began in 2002 when the Watson brothers, 49, read a secret file that mentioned the workers and a mass grave. The papers were left to them by their grandfather, who worked as a secretary to the president of what was then the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad, and is now part of SEPTA.
The brothers began research that would eventually involve geophysicist Timothy Bechtel; the Chester County Coroner's Office; Earl Schandelmeier, an adjunct professor at Immaculata; Janet Monge, the keeper of skeletal collections at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; and others. Project researcher John Ahtes died of a heart attack in the midst of the investigation.
Researchers excavated the area and found bones, buttons, a knife, smoking pipes with an Irish flag, and coffin nails. A story of U.S. industry and the immigrants who contributed to it was pieced together.
The men from Donegal, Tyrone, and Derry Counties sailed to the United States and were promptly hired by railroad man Philip Duffy of Willistown. The mass of workers lived in a shanty near the tracks. The washerwoman served them. Within eight weeks, they were dead - of cholera and other causes.
Four skulls unearthed at the shanty site show signs of blunt trauma, investigators said. One has a hole that might be from a bullet.
The men probably were the victims of anti-Irish sentiment, the fear of cholera, and prejudice against immigrants, researchers say.
"Their sacrifice has been our motivation," Frank Watson said.
Before the funeral service, attendees waited in line to enter the Bringhurst Funeral Home chapel at the cemetery. Inside was a display of nails, buttons, pieces of china, and other artifacts unearthed in the excavation.

Life in the United States was tremendously difficult for the newly arrived.  Maybe we descendents of those immigrants ought to remember their struggles with prejudice when debating immigration policy today.