The decaying bones tell the tale of a man, likely of European descent.

He dined on buttermilk and potatoes.

And he died young, probably in his early 20s.

His name? No one's sure.

For now, researchers simply call the remains "Body No. 1."

The man has been dead for more than 150 years, and by examining the bones and teeth found in the recently discovered Duffy's Cut mass grave in Malvern, scientists and doctors will hope to find out a lot more about him, including his actual name.

"There's going to be a lot of detective work," Dr. Matthew Patterson said.

A local dentist with forensics expertise, Patterson recently volunteered to help solve the mystery of Duffy's Cut.

Last month, researchers at Immaculata University announced they finally discovered the resting place of 57 Irish workers in the woods of East Whiteland Township in Chester County.

"For us, this is a crusade," said Bill Watson, a history professor at Immaculata. "The goal is not only to examine or study, it's to give some justice to men who were thrown away by society 177 years ago."

The workers, from Donegal, Tyrone and Derry counties in Ireland, immigrated to America in June 1832. They were brought to Chester County to work on the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad by a fellow Irishman, Philip Duffy.

"Six weeks off the boat, and they were dead," said Patterson, also a practicing family dentist at Patterson/Votilla Dentistry in Lancaster.

While researchers say the site definitely contains all the workers' remains, they're still not sure as to how the 57 men died. Theories have varied, but researchers believe that many died or were dying from a deadly cholera outbreak.

Researchers suspect the men who managed to stay alive were murdered because of anti-Irish prejudice and out of fear the highly-contagious disease would spread.

Cholera, while highly fatal, kills 40 to 60 percent of its victims, but never all, Watson said. "Some of them should have survived."

So far, "every bit of evidence uncovered is consistent with foul play," Patterson said, noting the discovery of compression fractures (large dents) in No. 1's skull.

The two fractures would have "been from whacking someone in the head," probably with a tool similar to a ball-peen hammer, he said.

One down, 56 to go.

"We could find that they were all victims of foul play," Patterson said, but cautioned: "We just don't know until we see more bones. We still aren't sure."

Nestled in a wooded hillside leading into two valleys with streams, the majority of the dig site is still unexcavated. The remains have to be carefully removed from the dirt because of a large risk of further mixing up the bones.

"All the bodies were dumped in one spot," Patterson said. "They're all commingled."

Patterson is a part of a growing research team that has made strides in the Duffy's Cut project. Since the discovery of the grave last month using advanced ground radar from the University of Pennslyvania, more researchers and institutions have taken an interest in it.

The Smithsonian Institution offered to perform DNA testing on the bones to help identify modern descendants of the workers.

The size of the research team has nearly doubled since it first began, and now has nine specialists and six students and volunteers working on it.

Patterson, who was trained in forensics at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, will assist in the DNA gathering process and examine teeth found in the grave.

"Everything above the shoulders is what I'll be doing," he said.

The power of science
The remains of "Body No. 1" are stored in a black safe, no bigger than a large toolbox, at Immaculata University. So far, researchers have only exhumed bits of No. 1's skull and leg bones.

Just from those parts, they've been able to figure out a great deal about the man, whose story has been lost in time.

It's a game of deduction.

The teeth, brown and decaying from spending years in the earth, are in remarkably good condition.

Researchers can tell what kind of person "Body No. 1" was not by what's there, but also by what's not there.

A missing molar reveals a rare congenital defect that probably ran in the family, Patterson said. If the researchers trace medical records back to Ireland, they have a very good chance of identifying the man's living descendants.

"It's such a rare defect," Patterson said. "I guarantee it runs in a family."

Still, a lot more will be revealed once they see more bones.

Even without a photograph, the researchers will figure out what No. 1 looked like after they reconstruct the skull.

From looking at the femur, they can tell how tall he was.

Erupted wisdom teeth tell us No. 1 was around 20 years old.

"It's going to take a long, long time" said Tim Bechtel, an Enviroscan Inc. geophysicist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. "Fifty-seven people is a lot of bones. In order to clean, sort and properly catalogue them, it's going to be a gigantic piece of work."

Advanced radar from the Lancaster-based Enviroscan was instrumental in locating the mass grave.

Archaeological work at the site will continue over the summer. Watson hopes a majority of the remains will be exhumed then. After study, he said, the bodies will be reinterred or sent back to living descendants for proper burial.

Said Bechtel: "It's both an archaeological site and a crime scene."