Sacred duty

But now John Ruddy’s story will be told, thanks to the efforts of the team of historians and students that have unearthed human remains at Duffy’s Cut just outside Philadelphia.
The discovery was awaited and anticipated over five long years of excavation at the site in the Chester County suburb of Malvern. And it was made on March 20, the day that a long winter officially made way for spring.
It was an excited shout from a student sifting the ground at the part of the site known as “the anomaly” that signaled Dr. Bill Watson of nearby Immaculata University that his dream might have been finally fulfilled.
And in the minutes that followed it became clear indeed that the time for dreams had passed.
“It was incredible,” said Watson in describing the “eureka” moment.
“It was a little chilly. We were using trowels and spades and working at a depth of about three feet below the surface when one of the students started shouting. I knew that we had finally come across something that was human,” Watson told the Echo this week.
The “something” that was human pretty quickly turned into a mother lode of human bones.
For Watson, the bones of long dead Irishmen were finally a validation for his fervent belief that Duffy’s Cut is the resting place of 57 Irish railroad workers who died there in 1832.
And one of them was John Ruddy, a young man whose short time on earth was completely wiped from the record books, only to emerge again in the first phase of the recovery of remains.
That first phase unearthed two fragments of human skull, one of them being identified as that of a young man not yet out of his teen years. Watson is certain the skull if that of Ruddy.
The bones dug up so far have been taken to Immaculata University and will be transferred to the custody of the county coroner.
“We are doing this by the book. As soon as we found bones we called the cops,” said Watson.
Others were called too, including a forensic dentist and a human anthropologist from the University of Pennsylvania.
Others have made calls. They include the Smithsonian, various archeologists, RTE and the BBC.
“We’ve received hundreds of emails. People just love this story,” Watson said.
And the story continues. In the coming days, Watson and his colleagues will start to lay out a grid on the site for detailed excavation and examination.
Work will also be started in attempting to identify individuals. Ultimately, Watson hopes, the dead Irishmen will be given a proper burial.
“It should be remembered that this not a grave, never has been. It’s a dumping ground. We want to re-bury these men, properly and with dignity,” he said.
The anomaly is roughly 35 feet long by 15 feet wide and Watson believes it holds all of the men who died suddenly, tragically, and, perhaps, even violently.
“John ruddy arrived in America on the ship named the John Stamp. He was one of the poorest of the poor. Then he just vanished from the record,” Watson said.
Watson wants to know whether the rail workers died of cholera, or in some cases, from deliberate negligence or violence from local vigilante groups.
Prior to the March 20th discovery, Duffy’s Cut had already given up a treasure trove of artifacts including belt buckles, coins, eating utensils, buttons, pickaxes and various kinds of spikes and nails. A portion of rail track was found during an earlier phase of the dig.
Duffy’s Cut covers roughly an acre.
Watson believes that some of the Irish workers at Duffy’s Cut might have been buried alive during the stage of cholera known as cold cholera. At this point in the disease’s lethal progress, it is possible to appear dead, though the individual is still alive.
The discovery of the bones will now enable work to proceed in an effort to identify causes of death, and even to determine the identity of individuals other than John Ruddy.
Watson’s team has uncovered records for the arrivals of eight ships in Philadelphia at the time, all carrying immigrants from Ireland. Most of them were natives of counties Tyrone, Derry and John Ruddy’s native Donegal.
“These men all died over a period of two to two-and-a-half weeks,” said Watson.
He said that attempting to verify that cholera was a factor would pose difficulties.
“The foul play part will be easier,” he said.