John Henry Biography at Black History Now - Black Heritage Commemorative Society Jun 9th, 2011 | By BHS | Category: Activism , Social Sciences Mid-Late 19th Century John Henry, about whom little is known, is a subject of legend and song, and may well have been a real person living in the late 19th century in West Virginia or Alabama. The legend is the best-known black “tall tale,” honoring the achievements of an individual under difficult circumstances. In the case of John Henry, a “steel driving man,” he is memorialized for defeating a steam-powered machine in a test of strength and fortitude. As such, he continues to serve a vital mythic purpose in dramatizing the power of African Americans, and workers of all races. The Facts There is some evidence that John Henry was a historical man, probably an emancipated slave born in either North Carolina or Virginia in the decade of the 1840s or 1850s. He apparently grew to great size, perhaps over six feet tall and weighing over 200 pounds, matched by big appetites for food and hard work.

Like many recently freed African Americans, he went to work for the railroads during the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. At the time, many rail lines were pushing west through the Appalachian Mountains, part of the drive to expand the still-young nation to the western frontier. The challenge of penetrating those mountains was formidable. Tunnels had to be blasted through the rock using manual labor. The technique was to drive a deep hole into the rock with a steel shaft called a drill, in which explosives would be placed and ignited to blast incrementally into the mountain. The drill was pounded in by a “steel driver” wielding a sledgehammer of considerable weight. Each driver had an assistant, called a “turner,” who held the drill and rotated it between hammer blows. Both were hazardous, sweaty, exhausting jobs, but it was some of the only work available at that time. Newly designed mechanical drivers, powered by steam engines, were beginning to be tested and used to improve efficiency and reduce costs. The historical John Henry is widely believed to have worked as a steel-driver for the Chesapeake & Ohio, or C&O Railway. Recent academic research suggests that the actual location may have been in Alabama in the year 1887.

In any event, the C&O was at that time extending its line west into the Ohio Valley. Progress was halted at one point by Big Bend Mountain in Talcott, West Virginia, a one-and-a-half mile obstruction that could not be circumvented. Beginning in 1870, a tunnel was blasted through the mountain over a three-year period. A roadside sign near the tunnel entrance reads as follows: “Tradition makes this the scene of the steel drivers’ ballad, ‘John Henry’.” Hundreds of African American and white laborers died blasting this tunnel, and others like it, due to unsafe conditions and brutal 12-hour days. In such difficult and close quarters, songs and stories provided both entertainment and inspiration for the men. The Legend The legend itself bears the hallmarks of mythic archetypal power. Usually told in the form of a ballad, it is one of the best-known and most recorded American songs. According to its narrative, the white railroad owners and their field bosses, or “Captains,” allowed the salesman for a steam engine driver to bring his machine to Big Bend Tunnel.

John Henry, who in some versions of the tall tale was born eight feet tall and went to work at three weeks of age, realized this was an assault on his and his coworkers’ effectiveness and their livelihood. He, therefore, challenged the salesman to a contest between him and the machine. At the end of the day-long competition, John Henry had driven more steel with his 14-pound hammer than the mechanical contraption, but he died a martyr on the spot, exhausted by his Herculean efforts or perhaps from heartbreak on realizing what inevitably lay in store. Beyond its powerful core of racial pride, the legend has migrated to more universal themes of workers and owners, underdogs and oppressors, the individual and society, and according to one commentator, even the Bill of Rights with its famous song lyric, “A man ain’t nothin’ but a man.” This may account for its ongoing vitality, and the countless versions of song and story that have proliferated over more than a century.

Other American tall tales, including Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, and Johnny Appleseed, tell similar stories of individuals displaying superhuman power, and were part of America’s evolving self-narrative: conquering a hostile wilderness through individual drive, courage, and determination. As the lyrics to an early version of the ballad put it: John Henry said to his captain: “A man ain’t nothin’ but a man, And before I’ll let your steam drill beat me down, I’ll die with my hammer in my hand.” The John Henry ballads probably originated as work songs for steel-drivers and other rail workers in the 1870s, and became more generalized as chain gang, worker, and prison songs. In later incarnations, they became folk, blues, or protest vehicles for the likes of Leadbelly , Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash, Harry Belafonte, and Dave Van Ronk. If the legend did indeed have a historical basis, it surely became exaggerated with the passage of time and reinterpretation, but its power and relevance remain strong to this day.

In addition to the musical version, the legendary John Henry has been depicted in sculpture, illustrations, books, and short films, and even served as the inspiration for a stage play, a ballet, and a postage stamp. These help ensure that his message will live, or as one early writer put it, John Henry “…didn’t really die… just stopped livin’ in his Mammy’s shack, and started livin’ in the hearts of men, forever and a day.” Railroad Legends - John Henry | Smartt Inc. Railroad Legends - John Henry John Henry was about three days old, sittin' on his papa's knee. He picked up a hammer and a little piece of steel; said, "Hammer's gonna be the death of me, Lord, Lord. Hammer's gonna be the death of me." There are many legendary figures in America, but few stand as tall as that of John Henry. The man who raced against a steam powered drilling machine and won. Many people think that the John Henry legend is only a myth, however, there is enough proof that a steel-driving man by the name John Henry did live.

One of those pieces of evidence stands outside of Hinton, West Virginia at the former C&O railroad (now CSX) Big Bend Tunnel. There on top of the tunnel portal is a monument to this man, one of America’s greatest folk heroes. John Henry Monument, Big Bend Tunnel West Virginia Photo The Alliance First off, what is a steel-driving man anyways? Back in those days and right up until the middle 1950’s, one way of drilling into rock or coal in order to set a charge (blast) was to use a hand drill and sledge hammer. This was a two man job. One man, the shaker, would hold the drill with his hand turning it a quarter of the way around with each strike by a sledge hammer. Sledge hammers could reach 30 pounds. This was John Henry’s side of the job, for you needed to be a big strong man to drive a steel drill into rock. The legend says that John was 6 foot 4 inches and weighted over 250 lbs. Once a hole was drilled, a charge was place inside and set off, blasting the rock or coal away.

By most accounts John Henry was born during slavery in either Louisa County, VA or in Tennessee, during the last years of slavery. But like most of the Henry legend there are conflicting accounts of this man’s birth and death as well as the location of the race with the steam drill. One story puts the site of the race between him and the steam drill near Leeds, Alabama at either Coosa Mountain Tunnel or the Oak Mountain Tunnel on the former Southern Railway. Every year, on the third weekend of September, the city of Leeds has its annual Downtown Folk Festival & John Henry Celebration. However, as previously stated, West Virginia has also laid claim to the Henry Legend. In December of 1868, the Virginia Penitentiary in Richmond loaded 14 convicts into a railroad car and sent them off to work on the tunnels that the C&O Railroad was building through the Alleghany Mountains. The name of one of those convicts was that of a John William Henry. However, according to this account, the records show that this John Henry worked on the Lewis Tunnel not the Great Bend Tunnel. However, the man responsible for building the C&O Railroad, Collis Huntington, loved pitting man power against steam power.

This was especially true when it came to drilling, setting the stage for a race between man and machine. As legend has it, John Henry outraced the steam drill and then lay down and died. Some speculate today that if John Henry did race the steam drill in West Virginia then his premature death may not have come from exhaustion, but from the long term effects of drilling into sandstone. Sandstone dust consists of tiny silica partials that, when inhaled, can cut the inside of lungs. But once again, we do not know the real cause of John Henry’s death, or where he died. So Leeds, Alabama may have the John Henry Festival, but it’s West Virginia that has the monument. So why is the monument to John Henry at the Big Bend Tunnel and not at the Great Bend Tunnel? The answer is simple; the old Great Bend Tunnel has been taken out of service and replaced by the larger Big Bend Tunnel. Back in the early 1990’s we (JMJ Productions) were out filming the old C&O lines in West Virginia. One of the locations that we shot at was Big Bend Tunnel, not knowing anything about the monument. We were quite surprised to see the statue sitting on top of the portal.

Up until that time I considered the John Henry story a myth, but that changed after my encounter at Big Bend Tunnel. Norfolk and Western Railroad John Henry Steam Turbine locomotive Photo N&W Railroad Like Casey Jones, John Henry is as much a part of America folklore as anyone. There are two types of music that songs about John Henry are sung in, the ballad and work songs (or hammer songs). The most well known is the Ballad of John Henry. Many musicians, from rock to folk have recorded these songs; they include Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte, Paul Robeson, and Van Morrison. However, one thing that John has over Casey is that the Norfolk and Western Railroad named their experimental turbine-electric locomotive after him. There was even a Liberty Ship built during World War II named the SS John Henry; however this was named for a Governor of Maryland not the steel driving man. Even though the ship was named after someone else, John did contribute to the war effort. His image was used in U.S. government propaganda as a symbol of strength, social tolerance, and diversity. His image was also invoked during the civil rights movement and the labor movement. In 1996 the U.S.

Postal Service issued a 32 cent first class stamp of John Henry. The first day commemorative cancellation was held (you guessed it) at the east portal of Big Bend Tunnel; over 1000 people were in attendance. Image of John Henry on U.S. Postage Stamp Image U.S. Postal Service So, was there a real John Henry? We will probably never know the whole story. Maybe it’s best leaving figures like John Henry alone, for it is good to have a legend that is bigger than life. Also, recently, as I was working on some tunnel portals on a current O gauge layout, I had a thought of putting a John Henry statue above one of the portals. --- Ray Del Papa John Henry was about three days old, sittin' on his papa's knee. He picked up a hammer and a little piece of steel; said, "Hammer's gonna be the death of me, Lord, Lord. Hammer's gonna be the death of me." The captain said to John Henry "Gonna bring that steam drill 'round. Gonna bring that steam drill out on the job. Gonna whop that steel on down. Down, Down.

Whop that steel on down." John Henry told his captain, "A man ain't nothin' but a man, But before I let your steam drill beat me down, I'd die with a hammer in my hand. Lord, Lord. I'd dies with a hammer in my hand." John Henry said to his shaker, "Shaker, why don't you sing? I'm throwin' thirty pounds from my hips on down. Just listen to that cold steel ring. Lord, Lord. Listen to that cold steel ring." The man that invented the stream drill Thought he was mighty fine, But John Henry made fifteen feet; The steam drill only made nine. Lord, Lord. The steam drill only made nine. John Henry hammered in the mountain His hammer was striking fire. But he worked so hard, he broke his poor heart. He laid down his hammer and he died. Lord, Lord. He laid down his hammer and he died. John Henry had a little woman. Her name was Polly Ann. John Henry took sick and went to his bed. Polly Ann drove steel like a man. Lord, Lord. Polly Ann drove steel like a man. John Henry had a little baby.

You could hold him in the palm of your hand. The last words I heard that poor boy say, "My daddy was steel-driving man. Lord, Lord. My daddy was a steel-driving." Well, every Monday morning When the bluebirds begin to sing. You can hear John Henry a mile or more. You can hear John Henry's hammer ring. Lord, Lord. You can hear John Henry's hammer ring. Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 05/11/2012 - 14:12. Good John Henry, A Steel-Drivin' Man--And A Luddite John Henry, A Steel-Drivin' Man--And A Luddite {{article.article.images.featured.caption}} Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Full Bio The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. Loading ... Loading ... This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe Symbols matter. Symbols are powerful. Psychologically, they activate "the vision thing," which George H. W. Bush had trouble with, as do so many on the Right.

Consider the legend of John Henry and his race against the newly invented steam hammer, a competition in driving steel to build a railroad line. For the Left, Henry symbolizes the working-class hero. He evokes the entire Marxist apparatus of downtrodden labor, exploited by the fat-cat capitalist bosses. The legend of John Henry at the Big Bend Tunnel appears to have some basis in historical fact. But it has no basis in moral or economic fact. Morally, John Henry exhibits a contemptible small-mindedness; economically, John Henry's opposition to mechanization is the kind of short-range non-thinking that economists should warn against. But the Left has tender feelings for this brawny proletarian. In the folknik era of the sixties, Pete Seeger, Josh White, and Odetta sang his mournful ballad. This version of the lyrics of "John Henry" captures it all: The captain said to John Henry "Gonna bring that steam drill 'round. Gonna bring that steam drill out on the job. Gonna whop that steel on down, down, down.

Whop that steel on down." John Henry told his captain, "A man ain't nothin' but a man, But before I let your steam drill beat me down, I'd die with a hammer in my hand, Lord, Lord. I'd die with a hammer in my hand." . . . The man that invented the stream drill Thought he was mighty fine. But John Henry made fifteen feet - The steam drill only made nine, Lord, Lord. The steam drill only made nine. John Henry hammered in the mountain. His hammer was striking fire. But he worked so hard, he broke his poor heart. He laid down his hammer and he died, Lord, Lord. He laid down his hammer and he died. Now let's throw the warm light of reason on the story. One website gives this account of the Chesapeake and Ohio's construction of the Big Bend Tunnel. The C&O's new line was moving along quickly, until Big Bend Mountain emerged to block its path. The mile-and-a-quarter-thick mountain was too vast to build around. So the men were told they had to drive their drills through it, through its belly. It took 1,000 men three years to finish. The work was treacherous.

Visibility was negligible and the air inside the developing tunnel was thick with noxious black smoke and dust. Hundreds of men would lose their lives to Big Bend before it was over, their bodies piled into makeshift, sandy graves just steps outside the mountain. John Henry was one of them. As the story goes, John Henry was the strongest, fastest, most powerful man working on the rails. He used a 14-pound hammer to drill, some historians believe, 10 to 20 feet in a 12-hour day--the best of any man on the rails. One day, a salesman came to camp, boasting that his steam-powered machine could outdrill any man. A race was set: man against machine. John Henry won, the legend says, driving 14 feet to the drill's nine. He died shortly after, some say from exhaustion, some say from a stroke. What then is the actual meaning of the story? John Henry, out of personal vanity, died trying to defeat an invention that actually brought deliverance from the inhuman conditions of all steel-driving men, including him. He and hundreds of men died building the Big Bend tunnel. The steam hammer would have saved most of those lives.

It would have allowed the laborers to do work, on the railroad or elsewhere, that was immensely easier and less dangerous. Is this something that John Henry and his Leftist admirers should oppose? Steam power also greatly shortened the time required to lay track, lowering costs and therefore lowering the price of rail travel, raising everyone's standard of living. The invention meant the substitution of steam power for costly, back-breaking, life-shortening, muscular labor. "A man ain't nothin' but a man"--but what is a man? Is his essence the brute strength of his muscles, or the unlimited power of the intellect? The true meaning of the story is not: "a man ain't nothing but a man," but: a man is more than an animal. Economically, the introduction of the steam hammer raised the productivity of labor and hence real wages. John Henry, an uneducated manual laborer, could not have been expected to understand this. But the contemporary commentators should understand it.

Yet the website continues: "John Henry's life was about power--the individual, raw strength that no system [capitalism?] could take from a man--and about weakness--the societal position in which he was thrust." John Henry was "thrust" into a "societal position"? How? By whom? By the fact that man has to work in order to sustain his life? By the fact that a railroad requires rails? These facts are due to the law of causality, not to some evil human design or to society. John Henry was not a victim--except of his own Luddite opposition to progress. [Key Figure] John Henry - Underground Railroad Underground Railroad 1872 John Henry One of the most enduring legends of humble strength and heroic determination, John Henry the “steel-driving man”, has been the basis for folk songs and stories of the late 1800's, telling the tale of Henry's great race against a steam powered hammer, which he won and subsequently died in victory with his hammer in his hand.

Related Content 1850 - 1887 John Henry “steel-driving man” and legendary hero, may have been a historic person born a slave in Mississippi, Virginia, or some other Southern state. In ballad and legend he is simply “John Henry,” but “John Henry” is a common combination of given names, so Henry may not have been his surname. Songs about John Henry were collected as early as 1905. In 1916 the former West Virginia governor W.-A. MacCorkle confused him with John Hardy, an African American gambler and murderer who was hanged in Welch, West Virginia, in 1894 and is the subject of his own ballad. By the mid-1920s the ballad “John Henry” was being recorded commercially by Riley Puckett (1924), Fiddlin' John Carson (1924), and other white “hillbilly” performers, and shortly thereafter recordings by such African American bluesmen as Henry Thomas (1927) and Mississippi John Hurt (1928) began to appear. During the 1920s the folklorists Guy B.

Johnson and Louis W. Chappell launched separate investigations into the John Henry tradition and published their results in 1929 and 1933, respectively. By the mid-twentieth century the John Henry ballad had distilled to an essentially stable form that names Polly Ann as John Henry's wife or “woman” and places his contest with a steam drill at “Big Bend Tunnel on the C&O [Chesapeake & Ohio] road” in Summers County, West Virginia. Both Johnson and Chappell concluded that John Henry was probably a real person who worked on the Great Bend Tunnel at Talcott, West Virginia, informally known as Big Bend Tunnel, during its construction in 1870–1872. However, neither investigator was able to build a convincing case from testimonial and documentary evidence. Using somewhat circular reasoning, they cited the tradition itself as its own main evidence. In interviews with people who had been at Big Bend Tunnel during its construction, Johnson turned up a “mountain of negative evidence” (53). Four of seven informants did not believe that there had been a contest between a steam drill and a steel driver at Big Bend.

One informant, Sam Wallace, flatly denied that there could have been such a contest—he would have heard about it. The brothers George and John Hedrick thought otherwise, but only on hearsay. C. S. “Neal” Miller, seventy-four, claimed to have witnessed the contest but said that he looked in only occasionally as he went about his chores. Miller gave different names for John Henry's shaker to Johnson and Chappell. In an interview published by Chappell, he did not mention witnessing the contest. Records have not revealed any steam drills at Big Bend Tunnel, though they were used in 1870–1871 at nearby Lewis Tunnel. At that time, when steam drills were just coming into use, it is plausible that there was a demonstration or contest at Big Bend. Lewis Tunnel is on the C & O in Virginia, near the West Virginia border. Records found by Nelson detail the temporary use of steam drills there; the presence at the Virginia Penitentiary, Richmond, of a white workshop with an adjacent graveyard and railroad; the penitentiary's leasing of convict John William Henry for labor at Lewis Tunnel; and his subsequent disappearance.

With the assumptions that Henry was the legendary steel driver, that he died at Lewis Tunnel, and that his body was brought back to the penitentiary for burial, these facts account for the following traditional stanza of the ballad. They took John Henry to the White House, And buried him in the san', And every locomotive come roarin' by, Says there lays that steel drivin' man. (Johnson, 99) However, eyewitness L. W. Hill told Chappell that “Bob Jones was the best steel-driver in Lewis Tunnel” (44). In 1866 nineteen-year-old John W. Henry was 5' 1-1⁄4'' tall, an unlikely stature for a champion steel driver. There is no evidence that he was a steel driver at all, no evidence of a contest at Lewis Tunnel, and no John Henry tradition there. Several other sites, including Dunnavant, Alabama, and the island of Jamaica, vie for the historical location of the legend. There is little support for Jamaica, but considerable circumstantial evidence boosts the Alabama claim. Giving many specific details, C. C.

Spencer wrote Johnson that he had witnessed John Henry's contest with a steam drill in Alabama in the 1880s. His story is supported by letters from F. P. Barker and Glendora Cannon Cummings, who gave the year as 1887. Spencer said that John Henry was at “Cruzee” Mountain, Barker said “Cursey” Mountain, and Cummings said Oak Mountain. Tunnels through Coosa and Oak mountains, two miles apart, were put through in 1887–1888 as part of the construction of the C&W (Columbus & Western) railroad line between Goodwater, Alabama, and Birmingham. A number of Spencer's details are wrong, such as the year (which he gives as 1882) and the railroad (which he names as the Alabama Great Southern), but many other of his details are confirmed by documentation. He said that John Henry was from Holly Springs, Mississippi, that his bosses included one named Dabner, and that he had been a slave to a Dabner. Cummings and a Chappell informant from Jamaica also gave Dabner or Dabney as the name of one of John Henry's bosses.

In fact Frederick Yeamans Dabney was chief engineer for the C&W and in charge of its construction. He was born in Virginia but was raised in Raymond, Mississippi, and he became a captain in the Civil War. After the war he lived in Crystal (not “Holly”) Springs, in Copiah County. His father's slaves included Henry, a teenager during the war. On 4 November 1869 Henry Dabney, an African American, married Margaret Foston in Copiah County. The 1870 and 1880 census records for Copiah County indicate that this Henry Dabney was born in 1850. Might he be the man now known as John Henry? Another African American named Henry Dabney, living in Copiah County in 1917–1918, was born 13 September 1879; this, too, is circumstantial, but some ballads do mention that John Henry had a son. The Marbury family of Leeds, Alabama, preserves memories from an ancestor, Ciscero Davis, who worked on the C&W.

According to the Marburys, steel-driving contests were frequent and popular—and a man named John always won. Ballads provide further evidence favoring the Alabama site. Rich Amerson's version places John Henry and “the Captain” (not “his Captain”) “'tween them mountains.” The title of “Captain” matches that used by Frederick Dabney, and according to local lore the contest took place outside the east portal of Oak Mountain Tunnel, which is between Oak and Coosa mountains, as is the town of Dunnavant. John Jacob Niles collected a version in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, in which “A man in Chattanooga, two hundred miles away” heard the fall of John Henry's hammer. Chattanooga is about 135 miles from Dunnavant. In the same version they buried John Henry “And let two mountains be his grave-stones.” According to the version of Harvey Hicks, “John Henry died on a Tuesday.” Spencer wrote that John Henry died on 20 September, which in 1887 was a Tuesday. The name of John Henry's wife also provides a circumstantial argument for identifying him.

The Georgia bluesman Neal Pattman learned the song “John Henry” from his father and sang “John Henry had a little woman / Maggadee was her name.” “Maggadee” could easily be “Maggie D.” and refer to Margaret Foston Dabney. Furthermore, “Maggadee” or “Maggie D.” could have been misheard as “Magdalene,” suggesting “Mary Magdalene,” which is found in the John Henry tradition. But “Magdalene” does not rhyme with “man”; it may have thus mutated to “Mary Ann,” which is found also in some versions: John Henry had a little woman, Her name was Mary Ann, John Henry lay sick on his bed, Mary drove steel like a man. (Chappell, 120) In the nineteenth century, “Polly” was a common nickname for “Mary.” A substitution leads to the most popular name, “Polly Ann.” Jamaican tradition preserves the name of John Henry's woman as “Marga.” All of this points to (John) Henry Dabney as the original John Henry.

Johnson received letters identifying John Henry Martin, a Virginian, as a top steel driver at Big Bend Tunnel and as the legendary John Henry. According to Marie Boette, quoting a 1957 news article by Kyle McCormick, this is corroborated by records then possessed by James Twohig, a foreman at Big Bend. McCormick wrote that John Henry Martin died near Gap Mills, West Virginia, years after the completion of Big Bend Tunnel, that his father was from Africa, and that his son became a prominent educator. It could be that in about 1888, when a ballad about John Henry Dabney reached the Big Bend area, people there recalled John Henry Martin, assumed that he was the hero, and placed the contest at “Big Bend Tunnel on the C&O road.” In this way the ballads may celebrate two John Henrys. Indeed, informants have named several other steel-driving John Henrys, and in a sense the tradition celebrates them all. From the outset two kinds of songs about John Henry were recognized: hammer songs and ballads. The hammer song is a fluid work song, usually nonnarrative and consisting of floating and improvised verses, only a few of which refer to John Henry.

In the following selection “whop” is added to mark the fall of a hammer or pickaxe, perhaps accompanied or conveyed by a grunt on the part of a singer: If I could drive steel (whop) Like John Henry, (whop) I'd go home, Baby, (whop) I'd go home. (whop) Drivin' steel. (whop) (E. C. Perrow, Journal of American Folklore 26 [1913], 163) This old hammer (whop) But it won't kill me, boys, (whop) It won't kill me.

(whop) (Johnson, 72) Many ballad stanzas have been collected, but the following selection tells the essential story of how “this old hammer killed John Henry”: John Henry was a very small boy, He sat on his daddy's knee, He picked up a hammer, a little piece of steel, Says, “This hammer'll be the death of me,” (Lord, Lord) “This hammer'll be the death of me.” (Chappell, 104; the last line of each stanza is usually similarly repeated.) John Henry said to his captain, “A man, he ain't nothing but a man, Before I'd let that steam drill beat me down, I'd die with the hammer in my hand …” (Johnson, 102) John Henry told his shaker, “Shaker, you better pray, If I miss this piece of steel, Tomorrow be your buryin' day …” (Johnson, 107) The man that owned that old steam drill, Thought it was mighty fine, But John Henry drove fourteen long feet, While the steam drill only made nine … (Chappell,-105) John Henry made a steel-driving man, They took him to

 the tunnel to drive, He drove so hard that he broke his heart, He laid down his hammer and he died … (Chappell, 114) A “steel driver” was a member of a work crew that removed rock.

He was the “hammer man” of a “double-jack” team, the other being the “shaker” or “turner.” In a rhythmic pattern often governed by the pace of an accompanying song, the driver swung a four-foot sledgehammer weighing at least eight pounds and struck the top of a “steel” held by the shaker, driving it into the solid rock. Steels were steel drills, chisel-like rods, usually one to one and a half inches in diameter, tempered at the sharpened end, and from two to eight feet long, perhaps more. Between hammer blows the shaker gave the steel a quarter turn and kept the hole clear of debris. When holes of the desired pattern and depth had been drilled, they were packed with explosives to blast away the rock. “Muckers” hauled away the debris. Steel driving was dangerous, especially for the shaker, and required great skill. For these reasons drivers were often the highest-paid laborers on the job. Although “steel-driving man” represents the main tradition, songs and stories sometimes portray John Henry with other occupations.

Children's literature and films frequently portray him as a spike driver on the railroad, perhaps from a misinterpretation of “steel driver.” In other accounts he appears as a riveter, a longshoreman, or some other hard-working laborer. Some of John Henry's deeds are superhuman. As a little baby he talked and predicted his own death: “A hammer'll be the death of me.” According to one story, “one day he drill all way from Rome, Georgia, to D'catur, mo' 'n a hundred miles drillin' in one day, an' I ain't sure dat was his bes' day” (Johnson, 145). The legendary John Henry is particularly a hero to African Americans. In a letter to Guy Johnson, F. P. Barker, who claimed to have known John Henry in Alabama, quotes him as saying, “the steem Drill Beat men of every other Race down to the sand. Now Ill gaive my life before I let it beat the Negro man.” John Henry died, but not before he had accomplished what most would think an impossible task, beating the machine that was intended to replace him.

Whether John Henry was an actual person or purely fictional he has inspired generations, even beyond the African American community; indeed, labor movements claim him as a champion of all working people. Not all of the John Henry tradition deals with his feats as a laborer. In some ballads he has several women. One informant allowed, “Lawd, I specs he had mo' 'n thousand wimmin” (Johnson, 146). Drilling and steel driving can be interpreted as sexual metaphors, and indeed “John Henry” has become a slang term for penis. The legend and influence of John Henry now extend well beyond the ballads that made him famous. Roark Bradford published his novel John Henry in 1931 and his play of the same name in 1939. The next year the Broadway production of the play starred Paul Robeson as John Henry and featured Josh White as Blind Lemon (Jefferson). In 1949, drawing on the image of John Henry, Lee Hays wrote the words and Pete Seeger the tune for “If I Had a Hammer,” the hammer of justice. In 1972 an eight-foot bronze statue of John Henry by the sculptor Charles O.

Cooper was placed in a park at Talcott, West Virginia, near the east portal of the now abandoned Great Bend or Big Bend Tunnel. A postage stamp commemorating John Henry was released in 1996, and an annual celebration, John Henry Days, was established that year in Talcott. The sledgehammer-carrying John Henry Irons, known as “Steel,” was introduced in the Superman comic series in 1993. His niece Natasha Irons became “Steel” in 2003. Kenneth Johnson's 1997 film Steel stars the seven-foot-one-inch basketball player Shaquille O'Neal as John Henry Irons. In 2001 Colson Whitehead published John Henry Days, a novel that includes elaborated John Henry lore. In the late 1970s the social psychologist Sherman A. James coined the term “John Henryism” to refer to a behavior pattern common among African Americans: “high-effort coping in the face of adversity,” that is, trying harder and harder against difficult or even insurmountable odds. Clinical studies have explored the correlation between John Henryism and high blood pressure among African Americans.

The “John Henry effect” is another technical appropriation of the legend of hard-working John Henry by social scientists. In an experimental study of people, the performance of a study group may be compared with that of a control group. But if the members of the control group somehow learn that this comparison will be made, they may be inspired to an exceptionally high level of performance (the John Henry effect), thereby invalidating the study. As one of the most enduring legends of humble strength and heroic determination, the story of John Henry will no doubt continue to provide inspiration especially to the workers, the poor, and the dispossessed who live and struggle within and against a system that seems to thwart their efforts and their dreams at every turn. AUTHORED BY SOURCES Chappell, Louis W. John Henry: A Folk-Lore Study (1933) Garst, John. “Chasing John Henry in Alabama and Mississippi,” Tributaries: Journal of the Alabama Folklife Association 5 (2002). Johnson, Guy B. John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend (1929) Nelson, Scott.

Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend (2006) Nelson, Scott. “Who Was John Henry,” Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas 2 (2005). Williams, Brett. John Henry: A Bio-Bibliography (1983) Steel Drivin' Man by Scott Reynolds Nelson - Houston Chronicle Steel Drivin' Man by Scott Reynolds Nelson Folklore made flesh Historian Scott Reynolds Nelson resurrects real-life progenitor of legendary steel-drivin' man ALEX LICHTENSTEIN Published 5:30 am, Sunday, October 22, 2006 Most Americans remain familiar with the legend of John Henry , the African-American steel-driver who defeated a steam-powered drill in a race but died with his hammer in his hand, immortalized in songs, tall tales and a postage stamp. Many might be surprised, however, to discover that John Henry was a real man. In Steel Drivin' Man, his fascinating book of popular history, Scott Reynolds Nelson literally brings this classic figure of American folklore to life.

Nelson, who teaches at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, likens the historian's labors to scavenging in a junk shop (one of his own favorite hobbies, he claims). His collection of historical odds and ends assembled for this book includes, among other things: recorded prison work songs; a postcard of the Virginia State Penitentiary circa 1910; long-lost engineering reports from the construction of the Chesapeake & Ohio railway through the mountains of western Virginia; penitentiary medical reports; a previously sealed prison log book, opened for him by an obliging archivist (Nelson must possess considerable powers of persuasion); and, grimly, the remains of Reconstruction-era Virginia convicts, now housed by the Smithsonian Institution . With this material, Steel Drivin' Man tells in tandem the story of John Henry, the man behind the legend, and the story of historian Nelson's own obsessive quest to rescue this figure from the oblivion of the past and the heroic mythology of American folklore.

By correlating fragments of the historical record with many of the more than 50 extant versions of the ballad of John Henry, Nelson concludes that Henry was a prison worker boring dynamite holes for a railroad tunnel through Lewis Mountain in 1871, on the West Virginia border. The convicts' pace of work was indeed pitted against a steam drill, and this work probably killed John Henry. His body, along with those of other African-American convicts who died digging the Lewis tunnel, was likely shipped back to the Richmond penitentiary for an anonymous burial. Nelson uses census and prison records to trace what he believes is the real John Henry to Prince George County, Virginia, in the months immediately after the Civil War. He appears to have been one of the thousands of black workers who took up the arduous work of rebuilding the devastated economy and infrastructure in the swampy hinterlands of Petersburg and Richmond. Nelson does an excellent job of conveying the intensity of political passions during Reconstruction, as conflict over the role of the federal government in local affairs and the status of recently freed African-Americans defined daily life across the South.

Set in its original historical context — when state governments enlisted African-American convicts to build the South's rail network — the life of the real John Henry constitutes "a tale of the terrible betrayals of the postwar South." Convicted of petty theft under Virginia's "Black Codes," the draconian laws designed to restrict the freedoms of former slaves, John Henry found himself sentenced to prison for 10 years, a virtual "death sentence" according to Nelson, given the harsh conditions prevalent on Virginia's convict gangs. During the 1870s, each year one of every 10 convicts serving time in Virginia died, many of them worked to death by the railroad contractors who leased them from the state. This, indeed, appears to be the real John Henry's fate, according to Nelson. Virginia penitentiary records show that more than 100 African-American convict workers died constructing the Lewis tunnel. Nelson has good evidence that newly introduced steam drills and convict laborers worked side by side on the C&O to help blast open a link through the mountains separating Virginia and West Virginia.

He speculates that the job's high mortality rate can be attributed to silicosis, as prisoners like John Henry inhaled the rock dust generated by the powerful, yet inefficient, steam drills. As Nelson notes, like all folklore, the ballad of John Henry has a protean quality, serving numerous social purposes as a "story of courage in conflict with power" and undergoing many permutations over time. Nelson reminds us that the song likely began as a tool, helping to set the rhythm by which black railway men could endure their backbreaking labors. In the years after John Henry's death, coal miners, convicts and railroad-track workers helped spread the ballad to churches, workplaces, juke joints and prison camps all across the American South.

Nelson creatively explores what he calls the ballad's "utopian" implications, an expression of a "dream that laborers, whom no machine could imitate, stood outside the undemocratic, Jim Crow South." By the first decades of the 20th century, John Henry had caught the attention of Southern folklorists, who, Nelson remarks, "glibly turned him into a hero." Soon, an African-American lamentation that had helped set the pace of work became instead a staple of nostalgic public performance, a "historical commentary ... calibrated to recall a bygone era." The ballad of John Henry also became an important part of the repertoire of the blues singers who carried African-American culture from the rural South to the urban industrial North. Ironically, Nelson shows how at one point the song returned south, where in the hands of Fiddlin' John Carson it took the form of a country-music ballad that spoke to the plight of white cotton-mill hands. These men and women certainly knew what it felt like to race against a machine in the workplace. Indeed, Carson's 1924 "hillbilly" version of the song was the first ever to be recorded.

In the last chapters of the book Nelson traces the song's journey from the bars of Chicago's South Side to the cabarets of interwar bohemian Europe to Communist Party rallies during the Great Depression. In the 1930s John Henry became a left-wing icon of proletarian resistance to racism and exploitation, and Depression-era radicals ironically "helped convert John Henry's story from a folk tale to a national symbol." If we look hard enough, Nelson suggests, we can find John Henry everywhere as a symbol of pluralism in post-Depression America — in World War II Army propaganda, in children's books or as the prototype for the superheroes of postwar comic books — even while he remained an icon of pride and strength in the black community. Professional historians are bound to take issue with Nelson's frequent resort to speculation when his sources cannot provide definitive evidence about John Henry's life, death and rebirth as an icon. But I believe most readers will find in his imaginative reconstruction of the John Henry story a profound and welcome acknowledgment of the unrecognized labors that went into building this country, a story that, as Nelson says, reminds us of "terrible adversity that somehow produces marvelous things." Alex Lichtenstein teaches American history at Rice University.

John Henry - The Story - The Man The Man - Facts, Fiction and Themes By Carlene Hempel There are two John Henrys, the actual man and the legend surrounding him. Defining the first is a matter of assembling facts. He was born a slave, worked as a laborer for the railroads after the Civil War, and died in his 30s, leaving behind a young pretty wife and a baby. Pinning down the second, the legend, is not so easy. It's as varied as the thousands of people - menial workers, scholars, professional musicians - who have studied, sung and recorded it over the years. The story of John Henry, told mostly through ballads and work songs, traveled from coast to coast as the railroads drove west during the 19th Century. And in time, it has become timeless, spanning a century of generations with versions ranging from prisoners recorded at Mississippi's Parchman Farm in the late 1940s to present-day folk heroes. From what we know, John Henry was born a slave in the 1840s or 1850s in North Carolina or Virginia.

He grew to stand 6 feet tall, 200 pounds - a giant in that day. He had an immense appetite, and an even greater capacity for work. He carried a beautiful baritone voice, and was a favorite banjo player to all who knew him. One among a legion of blacks just freed from the war, John Henry went to work rebuilding the Southern states whose territory had been ravaged by the Civil War. The period became known as the Reconstruction, a reunion of the nation under one government after the Confederacy lost the war. The war conferred equal civil and political rights on blacks, sending thousands upon thousands of men into the workforce, mostly in deplorable conditions and for poor wages. As far as anyone can determine, John Henry was hired as a steel-driver for the C&O Railroad, a wealthy company that was extending its line from the Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio Valley. Steel drivers, also known as a hammer man, would spend their workdays driving holes into rock by hitting thick steel drills or spikes. The hammer man always had a partner, known as a shaker or turner, who would crouch close to the hole and rotate the drill after each blow.

The C&O's new line was moving along quickly, until Big Bend Mountain emerged to block its path. The mile-and-a-quarter-thick mountain was too vast to build around. So the men were told they had drive their drills through it, through its belly. It took 1,000 men three years to finish. The work was treacherous. Visibility was negligible and the air inside the developing tunnel was thick with noxious black smoke and dust. Hundreds of men would lose their lives to Big Bend before it was over, their bodies piled into makeshift, sandy graves just steps outside the mountain. John Henry was one of them. As the story goes, John Henry was the strongest, fastest, most powerful man working on the rails. He used a 14-pound hammer to drill, some historians believe, 10 to 20 feet in a 12-hour day - the best of any man on the rails. One day, a salesman came to camp, boasting that his steam-powered machine could outdrill any man. A race was set: man against machine. John Henry won, the legend says, driving 14 feet to the drill's nine.

He died shortly after, some say from exhaustion, some say from a stroke. So why would one man - one among a hundred years of other men and other stories - emerge as such a central figure in folklore and song? For this, we can only speculate. Like Paul Bunyan, John Henry's life was about power - the individual, raw strength that no system could take from a man - and about weakness - the societal position in which he was thrust. To the thousands of railroad hands, he was an inspiration and an example, a man just like they who worked in a deplorable, unforgiving atmosphere but managed to make his mark. But the song also reflects many faces, many lives. Some consider it a protest anthem, an attempt by the laborers to denounce - without facing punishment or dismissal by their superiors - the wretched conditions under which John Henry worked. This old hammer killed John Henry But it won't kill me, it won't kill me. Another refrain perhaps allowed the men to imagine they could walk away from the tunnel. And of course they could have. The whites driving them were not their owners. But still, for many blacks, the railroad was an extension of the plantation.

Whites were barking the orders; an army of blacks was doing the work. And, for the most part, they had no other option. Take this hammer, and carry it to the captain, Tell him I'm gone, tell him I'm gone. Still another reading interprets John Henry's story as one rooted in sex and power. And indeed, some of the ballads depict John Henry as a man leashed to his sexual appetites, roaming the countryside to drive his steel, so to speak. In his 1933 book "John Henry A Folk-Lore Study," historian Louis W. Chappell maintains that the ballad's sexual symbolism is abundantly and unmistakably clear. Consider a verse common among several versions: When John Henry was a little boy, He was sitting on his papa's knee; He was looking down on a piece of steel Says, 'A steel-driving man I will be. Lord, Lord A steel-driving man I will be.' He's looking at a piece of steel between his legs as he sits on his father's lap. The phallic nature of the description is obvious, Chappell points out.

And a scene about John Henry's wife: John Henry had a little woman, Her name was Polly Ann, When John Henry lay sick down on his bed, Polly drove steel like a man Polly drove steel like a man. It is also important to put the songs in context. The drivers worked deep inside a mountain. The air was thick and hot, and the space, close. Many of the men walked around partially clothed, if not naked, according to testimony collected by historians. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to argue that the laborers sang sexually charged songs about a man who was a sexual hero as well as a work hero, to accompany them through the grueling days. Whatever John Henry meant or has come to mean, his legend has persevered. Perhaps that's because it reminds us of a time in history - the war and Reconstruction - that we know we ought not to forget. Or, perhaps it's that John Henry represents to us a man who stayed true, despite living in a time and place where, just like in Big Bend, the roads were blocked and the choices, limited. In other words, like all good heroes, his story still applies.

John Henry: The Steel Driving Man: From Heroes & Champions at Americanfolklore.net retold by S.E. Schlosser Now John Henry was a mighty man, yes sir. He was born a slave in the 1840's but was freed after the war. He went to work as a steel-driver for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, don't ya know. And John Henry was the strongest, the most powerful man working the rails. John Henry, he would spend his day's drilling holes by hitting thick steel spikes into rocks with his faithful shaker crouching close to the hole, turning the drill after each mighty blow. There was no one who could match him, though many tried. Well, the new railroad was moving along right quick, thanks in no little part to the mighty John Henry. But looming right smack in its path was a mighty enemy - the Big Bend Mountain. Now the big bosses at the C&O Railroad decided that they couldn't go around the mile and a quarter thick mountain. No sir, the men of the C&O were going to go through it - drilling right into the heart of the mountain. A thousand men would lose their lives before the great enemy was conquered.

It took three long years, and before it was done the ground outside the mountain was filled with makeshift, sandy graves. The new tunnels were filled with smoke and dust. Ya couldn't see no-how and could hardly breathe. But John Henry, he worked tirelessly, drilling with a 14-pound hammer, and going 10 to 12 feet in one workday. No one else could match him. Then one day a salesman came along to the camp. He had a steam-powered drill and claimed it could out-drill any man. Well, they set up a contest then and there between John Henry and that there drill. The foreman ran that newfangled steam-drill. John Henry, he just pulled out two 20-pound hammers, one in each hand. They drilled and drilled, dust rising everywhere. The men were howling and cheering. At the end of 35 minutes, John Henry had drilled two seven foot holes - a total of fourteen feet, while the steam drill had only drilled one nine-foot hole. John Henry held up his hammers in triumph! The men shouted and cheered. The noise was so loud, it took a moment for the men to realize that John Henry was tottering.

Exhausted, the mighty man crashed to the ground, the hammer's rolling from his grasp. The crowd went silent as the foreman rushed to his side. But it was too late. A blood vessel had burst in his brain. The greatest driller in the C&O Railroad was dead. Some folks say that John Henry's likeness is carved right into the rock inside the Big Bend Tunnel. And if you walk to the edge of the blackness of the tunnel, sometimes you can hear the sound of two 20-pound hammers drilling their way to victory over the machine. You can read more West Virigina folktales in Spooky South by S.E. Schlosser. John Henry, Legendary 'Steel Drivin" Man" - Leeds, Alabama - Alabama Historical Markers on Waymarking.com you are not logged in. [log in] John Henry, Legendary 'Steel Drivin" Man" - Leeds, Alabama - Alabama Historical Markers on Waymarking.com Welcome to Waymarking.com! We hope you've been able to find what you are looking for. We would also like to encourage you to take some time to browse some of the other aspects of our site.

We recommend viewing our featured waymarks , or perhaps the newest waymarks . You can also create a free membership to track your progress online and share your locations with others. Click here to view the complete waymark directory N 33° 32.635 W 086° 32.346 16S E 542789 N 3711683 Quick Description: Located at the Leeds, Alabama's historic rail depot, this marker celebrates the epic man versus machine contest that occurred at a local train tunnel. Location: Alabama, United States Date Posted: 3/10/2009 8:17:09 PM Waymark Code: WM60B3 Long Description: Inscription reads: The story of "steel drivin' man" John Henry is one of America's most enduring legends. The strong ex-slave became a folk hero during construction of the Columbus & Western Railroad between Goodwater and Birmingham. He drilled holes for explosives used to blast tunnels. According to legend, he was involved in a race against a steam-powered drill that its manufacturer claimed could do the job faster than a man.

Witnesses said after the all-day contest that he and his heavy hammer cleared substantially more feet than the steam drill. Versions of the blues song 'John Henry' relate how the powerful man won the contest but died from exhaustion, his "hammah" in his hand. He supposedly was buried nearby. Although other states claim John Henry, noted Georgia folklore researcher John Garst found evidence that the event occurred near Dunnavant on September 20, 1887, at either the Big Oak Tunnel or Coosa Tunnel, two miles apart. Marker Name: John Henry, Legendary 'Steel Drivin' Man" Marker Type: Urban Read more about John Henry research:

Question: What legendary "steel-driving man" died after defeating a steam-powered hammer?
Answer: John Henry