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A Final Farewell to John Ruddy

Frank and Bill Watson are joined by a third piper at the gravesite in Ardara, Donegal. Photo courtesy of Donegal News.

Frank and Bill Watson are joined by a third piper at the gravesite in Ardara, Donegal. Photo courtesy of Donegal News.

By Harry Walsh in Ardara
Reprinted with permission of the Donegal News

DONEGAL man John Ruddy was buried in Ardara on Saturday afternoon, 181 years after he was believed to have been murdered at Duffy’s Cut, 20 miles west of Philadelphia.

Ruddy, from Inishowen,was among a group of 57 Irish labourers were who sailed from Derry on the John Stamp in June 1832. Within five weeks of arriving, all had perished.

On Saturday afternoon, he was accorded honours denied during his short, cruel life as his remains were interred following a poignant burial ceremony conducted by Canon Austin Laverty, Parish Priest, Ardara.

The casket was carried to its final resting place by Earl Schandelmeier, a Historian at Immaculata University, which was the driving force behind the Duffy’s Cut project, accompanied by three pipers in kilts. They were closely followed by Sadie Ruddy, who lives in Portnoo, and her first cousins James and Bernard Ruddy from Quigley’s Point, all three of whom are direct descendants of the deceased.

Canon Laverty told those assembled that “this brings a form of closure to a sad and shameful chapter of American history and re-enforced how desperate times were in this country at the beginning of the nineteenth century.”

Looking out across the graveyard towards Loughros Bay and the Atlantic Ocean beyond, Canon Laverty noted that Slieve Tooey – visible in the distance – was possibly the last piece of Ireland that Mr Ruddy and those who left Derry in 1832 saw through the mists of their tears.

“In a strange way it’s appropriate that his mortal remains are laid here to rest in his native county,” Canon Laverty said.

Prof William Watson of the history department at Immaculata who spearheaded the research and excavation with his twin brother Frank Watson were then joined be fellow piper Tom Connors to play Amazing Grace.

Speaking afterwards a clearly emotional Mr Schandelmeier said that he had been overwhelmed by the whole project.

“This has gone from being something which was on a piece of paper, and time spent looking through the archives, to finding a guy whom we are able to bring back to his homeland today.

“Lots of things happened to allow that to happen – it was almost synchronisity. Things were lined up and it was as if he was almost delivered to us.

“The body we excavated had a one in a million anomaly. There are not a million Ruddys and there are not a million people in Donegal, and here’s a Ruddy and he has it and two of his aunts have it and they also have a story in the family of a guy coming over to the US in the 1830s, working on the rail road and vanishing. What are the odds of that? How could it not be him? It’s been truly miraculous and, as a result, today was incredibly moving,” he said.

“This is history which has been brought to life. It’s not just black and white any more. He has a face, teeth, we’ve uncovered the instruments he ate with – he’s a human being.

“Sad events like this happen every day all over the world. People die unnecessarily – their memories are lost and no one cares. It’s great to be able to give him some dignity – if it’s 181 years ago or if it was yesterday,” he said.

Philadelphia-Columbus railway

The story starts in 1828, when Irishman Philip Duffy won a contract to build Mile 59 of the Philadelphia-Columbus railway.

Mr Duffy enlisted “a sturdy looking band of the sons of Erin”, according to an 1829 newspaper article. The men moved heavy clay, stones and shale from the top of a hill to an adjacent valley, hence the name Duffy’s Cut. They were poor, Irish-speaking Catholics who would have been paid “$10 to $15 a month, with a miserable lodging, and a large allowance for whiskey” according to a British historian of the time.

Cholera broke out and the workers’ camp was quarantined. Some escaped but returned because the surrounding affluent Scotch-Irish population refused to help them.

“Of all the places in the world, this was the worst place for them to be,” Prof Watson explained. “They were expendable. Because they were recently arrived Irishmen, they were assumed to be the cause of the epidemic. It was anti-Catholic, anti-Irish prejudice; white-on-white racism.”

Prof Watson learned of the story in 2002, when he found a secret report that had been kept by his grandfather, an assistant to the president of the Pennsylvania Rail road.
In 2005, excavations near the Amtrak line unearthed old glass buttons, crockery and a clay pipe stamped with an Irish harp – “the oldest example of Irish nationalism in North America”, says Prof Watson.

Four more years passed, and the project enlisted the help of a geologist armed with a ground-penetrating radar. The first remains, those of John Ruddy, were discovered.

Mr Ruddy never grew an upper right first molar, a rare genetic defect. When the find was reported in Ireland, two dozen members of the Ruddy family contacted Watson. One of them, William Ruddy, travelled to Pennsylvania to give a DNA sample.

Prof Watson says “hundreds and hundreds, probably thousands” of Irishmen died building US rail roads and canals.

“The doors are opening slowly” to excavate the bones of the other 51 victims from Amtrak and private property at Duffy’s Cut.

Immaculata University is establishing an institute to explore at least six more mass graves in Pennsylvania and neighbouring states.

“The industrial revolution was made by Irishmen,” says Prof Watson. “Nobody talks about the toll it took on them. We’re looking at the seamy underside of the industrial revolution.”

See the story as it originally appeared in The Donegal News.

Special thanks to Sean Feeny of The Donegal News.

March 7, 2013 by
Genealogy, History, News

Rest in Peace: John Ruddy

Professor Bill Watson and Vince Gallagher. Gallagher donated the plot in the Donegal cemetery where John Ruddy will be buried on March 2.

Professor Bill Watson and Vince Gallagher. Gallagher donated the plot in the Donegal cemetery where John Ruddy will be buried on March 2.

The remains of John Ruddy, one of 57 Irish railroad workers who died at an area in Malvern known as Duffy’s Cut, will be buried on Saturday, March 2 in a donated grave at Holy Family Church in Ardara, County Donegal, Ireland—181 years after his death.

The remains were shipped to Ireland several weeks ago, said Professor William Watson of Immaculata University who, with his twin brother, Frank, discovered the remains of the victims who may have died of cholera—or were murdered by vigilantes—near a railroad embankment in the woods in East Whiteland Township.

Vincent Gallagher, a businessman and president of the Commodore Barry Club (The Irish Center) in Philadelphia, donated the grave in his family plot. The Watsons had hoped that Ruddy, who was believed to be an 18-year-old from Inishowen, would be buried near his own family, but the DNA tests on the body and a possible family member in Ireland have not been completed.

The remains of six other victims, including one woman, that were recovered from the site were buried in a donated grave in West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Lower Merion last fall. Skulls of several of those victims exhibited signs of violence and a University of Pennsylvania anthropologist confirmed that one was shot through the head. The Watsons have speculated that the seven may have tried to leave the site after the cholera outbreak and were killed to keep them from spreading the disease, which is caused by a bacteria and is usually spread by consuming contaminated food or water.

Work is expected to begin this spring to unearth the rest of the Duffy’s Cut victims who are buried much deeper than the first seven and close to the Amtrak railroad tracks. Following the intervention of US Sen. Robert Casey and other legislators, Amtrak, which originally told the Watsons that it was too dangerous to dig up the remains so close to the tracks, finally gave permission.

The Smithsonian Channel will be airing the documentary, “The Ghosts of Duffy’s Cut,” on March 7 at 8 AM and 5 PM, and again on March 15 at 10 PM.

February 21, 2013 by
Genealogy

Of Irish Ancestry? There’s An App for That

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m/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/4-Family-Crest1-173×300.jpg” alt=”” width=”173″ height=”300″ />Your iPhone or iPad may bring you even closer to your roots.

Jusst don’t expect miracles from the new Irish Family Ancestry app available at the iTunes store. You’re still going to have to put some elbow grease into your search. At this point, it’s more of an entry level intro to your Irish ancestry.

You just enter your name and some basic information comes up: the history of your family name, the original family mottos, alternate spellings, and the meaning of your name. You’ll also get a family crest, but don’t get excited. Most of those family crests are from families who probably had way more money and prestige than yours did. I don’t believe for a moment that my Foleys, who emigrated to Newfoundland, Canada, to farm and fish, knew any of the Foleys whose crest bears three black fleur de lis. Many of my ancestors couldn’t read or write. Let’s get real here.

So far it contains only 100 names and is only available for iPhone and iPad. Android users are out of luck for the moment.

Check it out on the iTunes website.  It might provide a little respite from checking your Facebook status or playing Words With Friends. It can’t hurt–it’s free.

October 19, 2012 by
Genealogy, History, News, People

Duffy’s Cut Victims Will Be Remembered, But Not Recovered

Duffy's Cut Memorial Cross Designed by Johnnie Rowe

From the beginning of the Duffy’s Cut project, back in 2002, Bill and Frank Watson knew there was a possibility that they would not be able to recover the bodies of the 57 Irish workers who died in 1832 under mysterious circumstances while building Mile 59 of the Pennsylvania Railroad. But the brothers—historians-turned-archaeologists—successfully located and excavated the first seven bodies, and the dream of finding and retrieving the rest of the workers looked increasingly realizable.

Until last week when Amtrak officials informed the team that the bodies in the mass grave were located too near to the tracks that are still in use today, and are therefore unreachable.

For 170 years, the story of Duffy’s Cut was simply an urban legend that had been passed down by locals through the centuries, the tale of railroad laborers buried alongside the Malvern Curve.  But when Frank Watson inherited a file from his grandfather, who had worked as an assistant to many of the railroad’s presidents throughout his career, the legend became a true life tale of Irish immigrants who suffered the reality of prejudice, cholera and murder before being deliberately erased from history.

The summer of 1832 brought the ship The John Stamp to dock in Philadelphia, plentiful with Irish laborers eager to find work. Philip Duffy, the man charged by the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad to build the dangerous section of track called Mile 59, met them as they came ashore and offered them jobs. Within six weeks, all these men (and at least one woman) were dead, supposedly from the effects of cholera which had become an epidemic in the area. Consigned to a mass grave, these immigrants were quickly forgotten and the details of their deaths covered up.

Frank and Bill Watson, in possession of the original file amassed by Martin W. Clement, the last president of P&C Railroad before it was bought out, and then given for safekeeping to their grandfather, Joseph F. Tripician, began the arduous task of setting up an archaeological dig at the site. Over the past several years, their efforts have paid off beyond all expectations.

Artifacts found at The Duffy’s Cut site include buttons, bowls, forks and pipes from the men’s home counties of Derry, Donegal and Tyrone. Working with forensic dentist Matt Patterson, University of Pennsylvania anthropologist Janet Monge and geophysicist Tim Monge, plus a dedicated team of students, the Watsons recovered seven bodies buried on the site, yet set apart from the mass grave. These first seven were six men and one woman who tried to flee the quarantined camp, but were hunted down by a local vigilante group known as The East Whiteland Horse Company. All of these victims show the effects of murder, from blunt force trauma to their skulls to bullet holes.  It seems they were tended to by a local blacksmith named Malachi Harris, who built coffins for them and gave them their own burials.

Many details yielded by the bones of these seven have helped to provide clues to their identities. The body of one victim matched up by age to one of the immigrants listed on the John Stamp’s ship list; John Ruddy was the youngest of the laborers, and DNA testing is underway with descendants of the Ruddy family back in Donegal to see if there is a positive match. It turns out that John Ruddy had a distinctive dental trait: he was missing an upper right molar, a genetic quirk that is also shared by other Ruddys in Donegal.

The discovery that one of the bodies was a woman was another revelation. Several of the men on the ship were traveling with female relatives, and the bones seem to point to her identity as Catherine Burns, a 29 year old woman listed on the ship’s manifest. The condition of her stooped shoulders show that she was most likely a washerwoman, and certainly used to hard labor.

With the advance of technology, Tim Bechtel was able to use electrical imaging and seismic surveys to positively locate the mass grave where the majority of the laborers had been buried. But what his equipment showed is that these victims are buried 30 feet below ground level, level with the line of tracks as they were originally built in 1832.

“It’s a huge area,” Frank Watson explained. “So they’re all there together. But because they’re 30 feet down, there’s no way to safely excavate.  If we started excavating at any spot along there, it would probably destroy the memorial wall and could possibly undermine the tracks.”

The news that Amtrak was not allowing excavation at the mass burial site came as a disappointment to the team, to know that they were so close to recovering the bodies of the workers but that any serious digging in that location was off limits due to safety concerns.

They’re taking the frustration in stride, however, and the work at the site is far from over.

“We can stay as long as it takes,” Watson explained. “We’ve been working on this last body that was under a large tree. We have the skull and all but one tooth. The teeth are in great shape, considering that the roots of the tree went through his skull and more roots had broken through his jaw, separating the upper and lower, actually splitting the jaw in half.

“We also found pewter buttons buried with him, probably from a haversack, together with a Barlow pocket knife. These are likely some of the best preserved items from an Irish-American laborer’s grave from the 1832 era.

“We still have so much more work to do.”

That work includes proper burials for these bodies that have been rescued. If the body that is thought to be John Ruddy is proven to be part of the Donegal Ruddy family, it’s likely that he will be sent home and laid to rest. For the others, interment at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd has been arranged, and a Celtic memorial cross has been designed and built to commemorate the laborers. Johnnie Rowe, from County Laois, has created a hand-carved cross and ledger from Kilkenny limestone that’s been shipped over and will be placed at the graves of the Duffy’s Cut victims. The ceremony is planned for March of 2012.

So the work of the team will continue. In fact, they’ve been called in to investigate what is thought to be a Potter’s Field in nearby Downingtown. The back story is that possibly one of the men from Duffy’s Cut was able to escape from the camp, then went and infected other Irish workers in the nearby town, leading to another mass anonymous burial ground. The possible connection to Duffy’s Cut makes this especially intriguing.

Amtrak’s pronouncement that there will be no excavation of the mass grave site may be a disappointment, but ultimately it doesn’t detract from the importance of the discovery at Duffy’s Cut.

“The most important thing is that the story is being told,” Frank Watson affirmed. “After being ignored for all these years, they have definitely earned a place in the Irish American pilgrimage.”

Duffy\’s Cut Photos

 

November 11, 2011 by
Genealogy, History

Vikings at Lagg

The chapel at Lagg, on Trawbreaga Bay, Malin, Inishowen, County Donegal.

By Tom Finnigan

The trees run out on the Lagg Road beyond Goorey. Near the Presbyterian Meeting House, a clump of palms rage against Atlantic breezes. Beyond them a few ragged roses in pink or white struggle to raise their heads above bracken. Half a dozen white-faced cattle stare at a middle-aged man on a bicycle until he passes the Meeting House and merges into a mist-filled landscape of water, sand and rock.

The Lagg Road is almost new. When Maghtochair passed this way in the 1860s he wrote lyrically:

“No dwelling is here; and the tourist, as he passes through it, with towering hills and precipices on one side, and the waters of Strabreagy, the sand-knolls and far extended beach on the other, feels himself quite alone with nature in all her solitary loveliness and bewitching grandeur…”

He wouldn’t have seen Norville Davies’ cattle staring. And I doubt if he was on a strong black bicycle, built with English precision, sporting a silver bell that wails above the wind and sends oyster-catchers piping into the bay. However, he did add: “One edifice only stands here; it is situated at the foot of those grand old hills, in view of the ocean and within hearing of the undying boom of its waters. It is the Catholic Chapel of Lagg, the first erected in the barony, and built by Dan O’Donnell in 1784.”

When I first came to this place in 1971, I watched people walk over the hills to Mass. I was told that, before they built an oratory in Ballyliffen, folk from the Isle of Doagh used to pack boats and row to Lagg chapel. I remember cyclists too – men in serge suits with bicycle clips. Today nobody walks or rows, and only blow-ins cycle.

Vikings came to this site when a monastery stood here. You can see them in a stained-glass window inside the chapel. They approach in a boat, sails billowing, axes raised. Recalling these invaders, crows gather on Cranny Hill like a black storm. Wind thrashes Trawbreaga. The bay runs white.

My imagination senses the panic when a sail was spotted beyond Glashedy. Monks run to the dunes, arms full of silver chalices and gold pattens. The Abbot digs a hole and buries gospel manuscripts wrapped in sheep fleeces. A bell peals violently. Driven inland by terrified children, cattle low and sheep bleat. Women sob and cling to each other; their men gather stones and take up positions on the dunes. Out beyond the bar-mouth, a striped sail and a prow carved in the shape of a beast approach the shore. Above the howl of wind, you hear the beat of a drum. The sun catches a glint of steel in axes. Terrified boys smell fear and shiver; soon they will taste blood.

I had forgotten all this until mass on Sunday, when tall Father Brendan swooped among us in green vestments and clasped our hands.

“Peace be with you!”

“And also with you!”

March 3, 2011 by
Genealogy

The 1901 Irish Census Goes Live Online

Waiting for the census taker? Image from iStockphoto digital restoration by Steve Wynn Photography.

Waiting for the census taker? Image from iStockphoto digital restoration by Steve Wynn Photography.

Where was your Irish ancestor on the night of March 31, 1901?

If you thought that was a question you might never see answered, think again. Thanks to the National Archives of Ireland, the 1901 census for all 32 counties North and South, is available online.

This is Ireland’s earliest surviving set of census records (the 1911 census also survived intact and was put online a few years ago), but all others beginning with the 1921 records were destroyed long ago. The loss of so many population records, particularly in the 1922 fire at the Public Records Office, makes the existence of the 1901 census all the more precious to researchers today.

Ireland’s unique approach to census taking—the forms were filled out and signed by the actual head of each household on the night of March 31st, known as “census night”—means that the information was provided directly by the family. If the head of household couldn’t write, an enumerator filled it out in front of a witness.

Initially opened to public perusal beginning in 1961, those original forms are now transcribed and indexed exactly as they were filled out, and in this age of immediate internet access, both the transcripts and the originals are able to be accessed 24 hours a day by researchers worldwide.

The records are searchable by any member of a given household, and able to be narrowed down by county, townland or street, district electoral division (DED), and age (plus or minus 5 years is automatically tallied). In fact, if you were so inclined, you could enter just a county name, and call up all the people living in, say, Waterford, in 1901. If you were so inclined…

But the information found on the actual forms themselves is the true gold. Birthplace, marital status, religion and any physical disabilities are all noted. In addition to the basic family page, there are three more forms included for each return; they deal with “religious denomination, classification of buildings and out-offices and farm-steadings, filled out by the Enumerator for that townland/street.”

And just because your ancestors may have already emigrated before 1901 doesn’t mean you won’t find family. All those who stayed behind—parents and grandparents, siblings and cousins—they’re all there in the records, waiting to be discovered at 2 a.m. by a thrilled descendent.

So what are you waiting for? Go see where your Irish ancestor was on the night of March 31, 1901!

June 4, 2010 by
Genealogy

Finding Where the Faerie Folks Hid Our Ancestors

Deborah Large Fox

Deborah Large Fox

As anyone who has ever started down the road to discovering their Irish ancestors knows, it’s a path that’s beaten, fraught with stones, at times narrow and crooked, never the one of least resistance. Aand every once in a while a black cat will cross it in front of you.

In other words, Irish genealogy is a challenge.

I, myself, have been known to muse on occasion that clearly my missing ancestors discovered the portal to hell in a cave in County Roscommon, and a few of them liked it so much they stayed.

Deborah Large Fox, former-prosecutor-turned-family-historian, has a kinder, gentler theory to explain the difficulty in locating her forefathers and mothers: this past January she began writing a blog titled “Help! The Faerie Folk Hid My Ancestors!”

The blog developed out of classes and talks that she’s been facilitating over a number of years. Fox explains that she‘s always “receiving new information and research tips…and blogging might be the best way to pass these tips to a larger audience.”

Interestingly, when Fox first began teaching genealogy classes, it was on the general topic of family research. But she noticed a trend developing: the majority of her attendees were focused specifically on their Irish ancestry. And, fortunately for all of us here in the Philadelphia area, that’s a road Fox has been traveling for years.

She started her own family research back in the days before the Internet, making several trips to Ireland in her quest. Her visits included trips to her family townlands, as well as time spent researching at The National Library of Ireland in Dublin.

Locally, she did a lot of investigating through the resources at the Family History Center in Cherry Hill. When they approached her about facilitating a monthly group for Irish researchers about a year and a half ago, she was happy to do so.

The group meets on the first Thursday of every month, and as I discovered for myself a few weeks ago, it’s a magical place where folks can go and share information, brainstorm together about brick walls, discover new avenues to research, and sometimes even chance upon relatives.

“I had cousins meet here a few months ago,” Fox told me. “I love the people that come.”

Each month, Fox introduces a different theme, “something out of the ordinary, like music.” April’s topic was “Irish Culture,” and it centered on how to pick out cultural clues. “Many Irish family history researchers become frustrated when they can’t find the county or townland of origin of their ancestors,” without realizing that things like special recipes passed down within the family, or childhood games taught to them as children, hold an association with a particular county or region of Ireland.

“People talking about songs and poems…these are cultural hints to rely on, any little clues you can grab onto, which sometimes in Irish research is all you have to work with,” says Fox.

One woman had an immigrant grandfather who wrote poetry, so she brought copies of two of his poems to pass around the group. Even though it didn’t lead back to Ireland, the knowledge shared that day gave her some new inspiration. One of the poems, when decoded by new eyes, appeared to be telling a tale from the days of Prohibition; she remembered that her grandfather had owned a pub in Philadelphia back during that era–a light bulb moment.

“It’s the hobby that never ends,” Fox laughed. “It’s just amazing. And I’m having so much fun with it.”

Fox’s blog has many fabulous resources linked into it, far too many to even begin to try to re-list here. You simply must check out her site for yourself. But, I have coerced a promise out her that as I stumble down my own path of research, she will ably assist me, so look forward to more genealogy articles at irishphiladelphia.com in the near future.

April 16, 2010 by
Genealogy

Calling All Gallaghers!

Our friend, Nancy Lyons, a Delaware-based genealogist, tells us that there’s a big Gallagher Clan Reunion taking place July 12-19 in Maryland, Washington, DC, and Adams County, PA. Last year, the Gallaghers (try saying it with the second “G” silent and you’ll have the Irish pronunciation of your name) met their Irish cousins in County Donegal, where the Gallagher name originates.

They’re expecting Gallaghers from all corners of the globe to descend to learn about the Gallaghers who served in the Civil War, attend the Adams County Irish Festival, see a baseball game, and enjoy some fireworks.

Of course, there’ll be plenty of sessions to discuss and share Gallagher genealogy and hear an update on the Gallagher DNA project.

For more information, contact:
Timothy P. Gallagher
5496 Ross Court
New Market, MD 21774 USA
Phone: 301-831-3994
E-mail: spqr753@msn.com

You’re a Gallagher if you have Gallaghers in your family tree—and the name can be spelled many different ways, including but not limited to these spellings: Gallagher, Galagher, Galaher, Galigher, Gallaghar, Gallagher, Gallahar, Gallaher, Gallaugher, Galliher, Gallihur, Gallocher, Gallogher, Galloher, Gallougher, Galligher, Goligher, Gollagher, Gollaher, Golliher, Gollocher, Gollogher, Golloher, Gollougher, Goloher.

April 10, 2010 by