A sense of mystery still shrouds exactly what happened to 57 Irish people who took jobs building a Pennsylvania railway in 1832.
The immigrants, who left Derry harbour on board the John Stamp, arrived in Philadelphia and secured work in Chester County as labourers during the construction of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad with a fellow Irishman named Philip Duffy.
Within two months of their arrival, all 57 had died, allegedly as a result of a cholera outbreak. But a number of historians in the area are now questioning what exactly happened at Duffy's Cut.
Historian Bill Watson and his twin brother Frank Watson, a historian and minister, have been leading the investigation for nearly a decade. They believe many of the men - from Donegal, Tyrone and Derry - died die of cholera and were dumped in a mass grave at Duffy's Cut.
However, they believe - based on mortality statistics, newspaper accounts and railroad company documents - that some of the group were killed. Railroad officials did not notify the workers' relatives of their deaths, and they later burned the shantytown where they had been living.
"We were told that it was an urban myth," Mr Watson said.
The men began to search the area around Duffy's Cut for information and initially they found glass buttons, forks and smoking pipes, one of which bore a stamp stating "Derry".
It wasn't until 2009 that the Watsons found human bones. After enlisting the services of a geophysicist, six skeletons were discovered and forensic experts found evidence to suggest the victims died as a result of trauma.
The Watson brothers speculate that when cholera swept through the camp, some of the Irish immigrants tried to escape the deadly epidemic but were killed by local vigilantes, who were driven by anti-Irish prejudice and fear of the spread of disease.
One set of remains was tentatively identified based on bone size and the passenger list of a ship that sailed from Ireland to Philadelphia four months before the men died.
If DNA tests prove a match to descendants in Donegal, the remains of John Ruddy will be returned to Ireland.
The other sets of bones - four men and a washerwoman - are to be interred at West Laurel Hill cemetery later today. Kevin Conmy, deputy chief of mission at the Irish Embassy, is travelling from Washington for the service.
Their grave will be marked with a Celtic cross made of limestone quarried in Co Kilkenny, and donated by Immaculata University, where Mr Watson works in the history department.
"It's just the right thing to do, to give these men a Christian burial," said university spokeswoman Marie Moughan.
The cemetery donated the plot for the same reason, said Kevin McCormick, a liaison to the Duffy's Cut Project from West Laurel Hill.
The Watsons' ultimate goal had been to find, unearth, identify and repatriate the remains of all 57 workers using DNA analysis, the ship's passenger list and other documents.
It is now feared that most are buried in a mass grave which is too close to the active Amtrak railway to be exhumed.
Additional reporting: AP
