History

Signing books: Marita Krivda Poxon and PA Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffrey.

Sister Polly McShain’s father, John, became a part of American history thanks to the business he inherited from his father, John McShane, an Irish immigrant from Og Hill, County Derry.

John McShain became known as “the man who built Washington.” He was, she told a crowd last Sunday at the Irish Center in Philadelphia, “the low bidder” on various projects in the nation’s capital: The Pentagon, the Jefferson Memorial, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Library of Congress annex, Washington National Airport and, in 190-51, the reconstruction of the White House. Just a few of the nation’s most iconic buildings. Later, McShain purchased Killarney House in Killarney, Ireland, where he spent a great deal of time. In 1979, he turned over the house and property to the Irish government and it has since been merged into Killarney National Park, a popular tourist attraction on Ireland’s west coat.

“All Irish should be proud of that story,” said Marita Krivda Poxon, the author of “Irish Philadelphia,” a new book about the rich history of Philadelphia’s Celtic sons and daughters, who stepped up to the microphone after Sister Polly. “It’s the story of America.”

Poxon—there are Finnegans in her line—was the guest of honor at this gathering at the Irish Center. Along with Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffrey, a Belfast native who wrote the forward to her book, and Irish Edition photographer Tom Keenan, who supplied many of the photos, she was signing books for the hundreds of people who stood patiently in line to meet her. With their autographed books in hand, they filtered into the Fireside Room for a dance demonstration by the Cummins School dancers and live music from Luke Jardel of the Hooligans and singer Rosaleen McGill and other local performers.

Peter Ryan, deputy Irish consul, traveled from New York for the event. “I feel very much at home here,” he told the crowd, clutching his autographed copy of the book. “You’re really blessed in Philadelphia to have the community you have.” Perusing the book, he said, he was surprised that so many Irish leaders and notables had visited the city, including Charles Stewart Parnell, an Irish Protestant landlord and member of parliament who championed the cause of Irish home rule; Countess Markiewicz, Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail politician and revolutionary, and Maud Gonne, an English-born Irish revolutionary and beloved of William Butler Yeats.

“Irish Philadelphia,” from Arcadia Publishing, is available in book stores, Irish shops and on amazon.com

Dr. Bill Watson acts out a part in the Duffy’s Cut drama. Behind him, from left, Gerry Sweeney and the Rev. Dr. Frank Watson.

Some were murdered, bludgeoned to death or shot at point-blank range as they tried to escape. Others were buried alive, the disease they contracted—likely from stream water—causing their skin to go cold, their eyes fixed and glassy, like death, but not death. The nuns who came to tend to them were sent away, told they were not needed in this camp of suffering in a hidden corner of Chester County, where the dead and dying were thousands of miles from family and friends.

The written story of the 57 Irish immigrants who came to build a land bridge for the railroad—including one woman, the unwed mother of one who cooked and did their laundry—and died under mysterious circumstances is horrifying enough. But when it’s acted out, as it was on Sunday, October 28, at Philadelphia’s Irish Center, it is bone-chilling. Some people wept as the ghost stories were told by actors and participants in the archeological project that literally unearthed both the story and the victims of this 1832 crime, when disease and ethnic and religious prejudice intersected tragically. See a video clip of the presentation  by Lori Lander Murphy.

The two men who lead the Duffy’s Cut project—Dr William Watson of Immaculata University and his twin brother, Lutheran minister, Dr. Frank Watson—both took roles in the theatrical presentation which they co-wrote with Marita Krivda Poxon, a retired librarian who grew up in the Oak Lane section of the city and who has written two history books about the region. One, called Irish Philadelphia, will be released in January.

To turn this drama into theater, the writers drew on both written accounts, some speculation, and the stories of ghostly sightings in the area that were passed down through generations. Jerry Sweeney of Philadelphia played Patrick Doyle, one of those 19th century witnesses who claimed to have seen the dead workers, “saw with my own eyes, the ghosts of the Irishmen, hopping and a bobbing on their graves.”

Those stories passed into the 20th century. In the audience was Kathy Wagner, who lives not far from the mass burial site in Malvern. She said when her sons were young, “I used to tell them to go look for the railroad workers. We knew about them. And they were there all along.”

Project leader Bill Watson had his own ghostly encounters. “Bill saw a trio of ghosts and in the play, Patrick Doyle, sees three ghosts,” said Poxon, after the show.

Poxon, who studied literature at Trinity College in Dublin and had wanted to be a writer, didn’t start writing seriously until she retired. “And I love to write ghost stories,” she said, laughing, the white wimple on her head—she played Sister Pelagia, one of the Sisters of Charity who came to minister to the sick—bobbing like a seagull.

The work at the Malvern site was temporarily halted after seven bodies were recovered—bodies suspected to be the laundress and six workers who had tried to escape and were killed. Most of them were buried this year in a donated plot at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwd. One, believed to be a teenaged Donegal man named John Ruddy, is being held until DNA evidence confirms his identity. The Ruddy family still lives in Inishowen Peninsula, at the top of Donegal, where John was from; one family member came to the US to donate DNA for analysis by experts at the Smithsonian Institute. The Ruddy family has a genetic dental anomaly that was also found in the recovered skull; the family also report that there’s a family story of a young Ruddy who went to America who was never heard from again.

Work at the site won’t continue until Amtrak, which runs trains along the line, issues permits. The rest of the bodies are buried deeper and all work stopped because the mass grave is in close proximity to the train line.

Amtrak is expected to issue those permits, “but the weather has to behave,” said Dr. Frank Watson, who played 19th century journalist Julius Friedrich Sachse, who wrote about the Duffy’s Cut ghost sightings, and provided bagpipe interludes.

The bodies are buried about 30 feet down “at the original grade of the valley,” said Bill Watson, who wrote his own part—that of a young Donegal worker. “We’re going to need an earth mover in there before our team gets started.”

He said that the forensic scientists who helped the Watsons diagnose murder as the cause of death of some of the seven expect that the other 30 likely died of cholera, but that won’t be known for sure until the bones are brought up and examined. “We think that some of those people may have been buried alive because the cholera trance made them appear dead. Cholera has been known to turn people into living corpses.”

In March, PBS will present its second program on Duffy’s Cut in its true-life crime series, Secrets of the Dead.

And maybe, by then John Ruddy will be in his final resting place in Donegal. If it turns out that the bones don’t belong to Ruddy, he’ll still rest in peace in the land where he was born. Irish Center President Vincent Gallagher has donated a gravesite in his family plot in Ardara, County Donegal. “He’ll be right next to my grandparents,” said Gallagher.