PARANORMAL PUB "DUFFY CUT PROJECT"

Marion Pellicano Ambrose

Over a century ago, Irish immigrants came to this country looking for a better way of life. Many came because they knew they could find work on the railroads. Such was the case for 57 Irishmen who came from Donegal, Ireland in 1832. When their ship, the John Stamp arrived in Philadelphia, they were met by a man by the name of Philip Duffy.

A big, strapping Irishman himself, Duffy recruited all 57 men to work on a stretch of rail line in Malvern, 30 miles west of Philadelphia for the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad.

Within the first eight weeks all 57 men were dead. Cholera had broken out and they supposedly succumbed to the disease. They were buried in a mass grave by the rail they were building in a place now known as Duffy’s Cut. As years went by, the story and location of the mass grave drifted into ambiguity. That is, until people walking along the rail began to report seeing a shadowy figure dancing on the ground by the tracks about 30 miles west of Malvern! Some said they could make out that it was an Irishman dancing but as they got closer, it disappeared.

Two young men heard this tale from their grandfather who had worked for the railroad years before. They were William and Frank Watson. Upon the death of their grandfather in 1909 the brothers found paperwork which related the story of the 57 men and the location of the mass grave. At that point Anthropologists and Historians began to study the documents and the area calling it the Duffy Cut Project. They hoped to un- earth the mass grave and put to rest the ghost stories that grew out of it. But what they found shocked them and gave them pause to think.

As they began to find the bones of these men, they realized that they had not died of cholera. One skull had a bullet hole in it. The others appear to have been bludgeoned to death. All 57 had been murdered. Historians believe that when cholera broke out the 57 Irishmen attempted to flee the area before they were infected, but local residents didn’t want to take the chance that they might spread the disease and made sure they never left Duffy’s Cut.

Since this discovery, the illusive Dancing Irishman has not been seen again. Perhaps he’s made his point!