Almost 200 years after an Irish woman was murdered and buried in Philadelphia, her remains will be re-buried in her homeland of Northern Ireland, BBC News reported.
In 1832, nearly five dozen Irish immigrants came to begin a new life in Philadelphia, hired to work on "Duffy's Cut," a stretch of railway between Philadelphia and Columbia, Pennsylvania. Within six weeks of their arrival, all 57 immigrants had died. One of those immigrants was Catherine Burns, of Clonoe in Northern Ireland.
Most of the immigrants were buried in a mass grave and forgotten, but Burns, unlike many of her countrymen, was not buried anonymously. Her remains laid for nearly two centuries about 20 miles west of Philadelphia in Malvern.
"The people of the village have really connected with Catherine and there has been huge interest from parishioners in her story and the story of Irish emigrants," parish priest Father Benny Fee told BBC News.
The area around Duffy's Cut has been investigated by twin brothers Bill and Frank Watson for over 12 years, IrishCentral reported. Bill, a university professor, and Frank, a Lutheran minister, began to archive and research the stories of the Irish workers along with Immaculata University professor Earl Schandelmeier in 2002.
The project's mission is "to make the recovery of the rest of the Irish labourers buried there possible, and to tell the full story of those who lost their lives helping to build America," IrishCentral reported.
In May, it was announced Burns' remains would return to Northern Ireland for a full funeral mass taking place Sunday, July 19 at 8 p.m. local time (3 p.m. EST).
