Episode Information

In June 1832, 57 young Irishmen arrived at the Port of Pennsylvania to seek their American Dream. Under corrupt railway contractor Philip Duffy, the men set out to work on the railways seduced by the promise of employment and a steady wage in the land of opportunity. But in just 8 weeks, all 57 men were dead, and their bodies thrown into an unmarked mass grave. The precise sequence of events leading up to their deaths is still clouded in mystery. It had been assumed that they were infected with cholera and left to die, and that some may have been murdered. What was clear was that there was a major cover up by the Philadelphia Columbian Railway company of what happened in that fateful valley. After years of exhaustive research, this film sets out to uncover who the men who died at Duffy's Cut were, where they came from and what happened to them. This film is the dark side of the emigrant story gone wrong.