Past Meetings


At our public meeting on February 18, 2007 the featured multimedia presentation was:

The Ghosts of Duffy's Cut

  By Immaculata University faculty members Dr. William Watson and Mr. John H. Ahtes

In June, 1832, a group of 57 Irish immigrants from Donegal, Tyrone, and Derry arrived in Philadelphia, seeking economic opportunity. They were brought to Chester County by fellow Irishman Philip Duffy to work on Mile 59 of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad (P&C), Pennsylvania’s pioneering rail line.  Within six weeks, all were dead - due to cholera and possibly to violence. 

The presentation, by two of the principal researchers of the Duffy's Cut Project: Dr. William Watson, Chairman of the History and Politics Department of Immaculata University, and Mr. John H. Ahtes, Lecturer in Immaculata’s History and Politics Department, discussed what happened to the men and the subsequent cover up — it is a story of Irish immigration, railroads, and ghosts. This story was the subject of a recent book, The Ghosts of Duffy's Cut (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2006), and an RTE documentary in Ireland of the same title, is scheduled to air in the United States in 2007 on the recently created Smithsonian Network.

For more information about this intriguing piece of history visit the Duffy's Cut Project web site.

 
 

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