(The following report appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on June 18.)
PHILADELPHIA — Researchers trying to trace the fate of 57 Irish railroad workers who died near SEPTA’s R5 tracks in the 1830s are scheduled today to dedicate a marker over what they believe is their mass grave.
That will give the area dueling markers, each claiming to mark the spot where the workers are buried. Another marker says they are buried about 100 to 150 feet away.
Immaculata University professors William Watson and John Ahtes have investigated the workers’ fate and believe East Whiteland Township’s existing marker, erected near the tracks in 1998, is in the wrong place.
Tests to confirm the location of the bodies have been inconclusive so far, though Watson believes the men were buried farther away from the tracks, in a wooded area that is now surrounded by a subdivision.
The ceremony is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. at 1145 W. King Rd. in East Whiteland Township.