Duffy’s Cut: An early Irish-American tragedy

In 1832, 57 Irish Catholic laborers died about 30 miles from Philadelphia in a place that has come to be called “Duffy’s Cut.” The work crew had been brought to Malvern to lay one of the most difficult stretches of track along the Pennsylvania Railroad, but when cholera swept the camp, the men were left to die, their deaths hidden from their families, and they were buried in a mass, unmarked grave. Historians BILL WATSON, FRANK WATSON and JOHN AHTES join Marty to discuss a tragic chapter of American history, and what’s being revealed as they dig up the bodies. Listen to the mp3