Posted on 08/24/2010 3:45:40 PM PDT by SueRae
Malvern, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- "This is a mass grave," Bill Watson said as he led the way through the thick Pennsylvania woods in a suburb about 30 miles from Philadelphia.
"Duffy's Cut," as it's now called, is a short walk from a suburban cul-de-sac in Malvern, an affluent town off the fabled Main Line. Twin brothers Bill and Frank Watson believe 57 Irish immigrants met violent deaths there after a cholera epidemic struck in 1832.
They suspect foul play.
"This is a murder mystery from 178 years ago, and it's finally coming to the light of day," Frank Watson said.
The brothers first heard about Duffy's Cut from their grandfather, a railroad worker, who told the ghost story to his family every Thanksgiving. According to local legend, memorialized in a file kept by the Pennsylvania Railroad, a man walking home from a tavern reported seeing blue and green ghosts dancing in the mist on a warm September night in 1909.
"I saw with my own eyes, the ghosts of the Irishmen who died with the cholera a month ago, a-dancing around the big trench where they were buried; it's true, mister, it was awful," the documents quote the unnamed man as saying. "Why, they looked as if they were a kind of green and blue fire and they were a-hopping and bobbing on their graves... I had heard the Irishmen were haunting the place because they were buried without the benefit of clergy."
When Frank inherited the file of his grandfather's old railroad papers, the brothers began to believe the ghost stories were real. They suspected that the files contained clues to the location of a mass grave.
"One of the pieces of correspondence in this file told us 'X marks the spot,'" said Frank.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
*ping*
That can happen to a man walking home from the tavern, alright.
Back in College I dated a gal from Phoenixville...I used to be pretty familiar with that area...especially that stretch of Rte. 30....
bookmark
Does anyone call Rte. 30 “The Lincoln Highway” anymore?
that’s funny back when i was in college i’d drive up every weekend ‘cause I was dating a guy in Phoenixville .
Thanks SueRae. Been posted a couple times this year, and I think it was posted last year too, but I couldn’t find it. :’) Keep the pings comin’ regardless.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2538388/posts
I contributed this to one of those prior posts, and so I’ll do it again.
There are places out west where the same thing happened to Chinese immigrant railroad workers. And those locaions, it is said, are haunted as well.
btt
Oh, so, it wasn’t last year...
Irish Railroad Grave Mystery Solved
BBC Online | 8-22-07 | Unknown
Posted on 08/22/2007 5:12:53 AM PDT by scouse
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1884732/posts
here are the two from this year:
THE LONELY BONES
Lancaster Online | Jun 20, 2010 | JON RUTTER
Posted on 06/20/2010 4:18:12 PM PDT by Willie Green
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2538388/posts
Old Irish bones may yield murderous secrets in Pa.
Tampa Bay Online | 8-16-10 | KATHY MATHESON
Posted on 08/17/2010 8:28:24 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2572208/posts
Yep...at least it is further west of Malvern, as you get towards Gettysburg....I’ve been back that way in the past year, and the signs for the “Lincoln Highway” were still readily visible.
“Does anyone call Rte. 30 “The Lincoln Highway” anymore?”
I saw an extensive piece on the Lincoln Highway on public television - some group is putting up alot of markers and such, since people who drive on it everyday don’t know about it. Sort of interesting.
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LOL...Actually she and I both went to School in Gettysburg...her family was in eastern PA and my family was from the Pittsburgh area, so we'd take trips to each other's home over the summers and holidays.
Sure Can!
Try drinking a few too many Ice beers. They make me see colors!
I lived in Malvern some years back. Nice area.
In researching some of our local history, I found that we had an outbreak of cholera in our area (Montgomery County) in the summer of 1848. I can easily see how it would happen with all the springs, creeks and humidity in SE Pennsylvania.
"It's a story that transcends nations, transcends history in a sense. It's the story you hear of workers that were exploited anywhere in the world," Frank Watson said.
"How do we treat our employees? How do we treat people who immigrate for a new life? Every human being deserves to be remembered."
Ah, that's it. You see, if we enforce the immigration laws, we're really just the same as those who murdered legal immigrants and buried them in mass graves.
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