Most of us are familiar with John Henry and have heard the various versions of the legend the supernatural, the real person and the Gandy Dancer and so on. I, for one, was content to believe that no one knew the actual account of the man and the contest. I was quite happy to straddle the fence. Maybe it was true, maybe not.
This changed when I began to attend the John Henry Steering Committee meetings. The late local historian John Kesler introduced me to two books. They were: “John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend” by Dr. Guy B. Johnson and “John Henry: A Folklore Study” by Dr. Louis W. Chappel.
In addition to these two books, I was privileged to review Mr. Kesler’s extensive collection of documents, newspaper articles, his personal insights of the contest, the building of the tunnel and local history.
After becoming the chairman of the John Henry Historical Park’s Kiosk Committee performing the necessary research to portray the legend in an honest, concise manner for the public, I concluded that John Henry and the contest held at the Great Bend a.k.a. Big Bend Tunnel was a plausible event. I cannot speak for the other committee members, but I do think that they would agree.
In an attempt to clarify common misconceptions presented within the ballads, songs, poems, hastily written newspaper articles, fictional made for TV videos and YouTube videos, what follows is a list of questions and answers:
Q: Did John Henry work for the Chesapeake & Ohio railway?
A: No, he worked for one of the subcontractors employed by the general contractor Captain William R. Johnson.
Q: Was John Henry a real man?
A: Yes, per the testimony of first and second-hand witnesses, John Henry worked as a steel driver at the tunnel.
Q: Did John Henry have supernatural abilities?
A: No, he was a man with all of the restrictions and limitations that encompass the human body.
Q: Did he use a twenty-pound hammer or swing two hammers at once?
A: No, he would have used either a seven or nine-pound hammer. Yes, he was able to swing two hammers at once working vertically but not horizontally, the direction used during the contest.
Q: Did he drive railroad spikes?
A: No, spike drivers, commonly known as Gandy Dancers, drove the spikes that held the train rails in place. At the time of the contest, the railroad was still in Virginia. All supplies were floated down the Greenbrier River via Battue boats from Burnt Bridge, current-day Caldwell, West Virginia.
Q: Was there a steam power drill at the site?
A: There is no documented proof of one onsite; however, Neal Miller, age 17 at the time of the contest, had the job of carrying water and drilling bits for the steel drivers. When interviewed by Dr. Guy B. Johnson at his home on Hungards Creek, Miller described the drill and its components in detail. Miller’s reputation as an honest, trustworthy man was verified by his neighbors and friends.
Q: Could John Henry beat the drill?
A: Yes. The drill had the power of approximately nine pounds per square inch; blows per minute are unknown. Drills in the later part of the 1870s had thirty-five to sixty PSI with two to six hundred BPM.
Q: Were there any contributing factors that gave John Henry an advantage?
A: Yes, the soft red shale that was intermingled within the hard red shale. To quote a common stanza of the ballad, “Your hole done choke and your drill done broke.” The soft shale created a situation where the steam drill’s drill bit would repeatedly gum up, requiring the bit to be removed from the hole to allow cleaning, which caused it to lose time. An experienced shaker (one who held and turned the bit) was able to accomplish this between the strokes of the steel driver.
Q: Were hundreds of jobs saved?
A: No, the steel-driving crews made up less than 10% of the entire workforce. There were six headings under construction at the same time due to space constraints. No more than six two-man drill teams could function at any given time at each heading. This represented a total of seventy-two men (author’s estimate). The remaining workforce would not have been affected.
Q: What about Pollie Ann?
A: Pollie Ann is first mentioned in the Blankenship Broadside, which is thought to be the oldest known version of the Ballad. There is no documentation of Pollie Ann residing in then Monroe County, or Summers County that was established on the 27th of February 1871. However, the local community of Talcott (Talk-it) has a strong oral tradition that she was John Henry’s wife and is purportedly buried in the Simpson Methodist Church cemetery.
Q: Did he live?
A: Testimonies from first and second-hand accounts agree that John Henry did not live. However, there are accounts that John Henry did live and later perish. Others claim that he completed the project and moved on. One should know that after the Civil War it was not uncommon for newly freed African Americans to use the name, John Henry. If I am not mistaken, in Guy B. Johnson’s book he relates that there were several men employed during the construction of the tunnel with the John Henry name. This could be a contributing factor for the difference of opinions concerning his outcome.
Q: Is there a grave?
A: There is no known grave, but there are several places that contend that he is buried at their site. The most credible is related in the Meadows family history as follows: John Maxey, the great-nephew of brothers, Preston and Russel Meadows, relates his uncle’s testimony that John Henry did race the steam drill and did win the contest, then died shortly thereafter. “John Henry is buried about 1,000 feet east of the tunnel about ten to twelve feet on the south side of the original railroad tracks.” Other places worthy of mention are in Hilldale where they buried him with a gold hammer. Another is the Simpson Methodist Church cemetery that was established six years later in 1876.
Q: Was technology the reason?
A: Resentment of machines doing the work of men undoubtedly was an issue but not an unknown surprise. A steam power sawmill and two steam engines were already on site. The steam drill had been in use since the mid-1850s. Then as today, technology was advancing in all aspects of the workforce, e.g. telegraph, dynamite, bigger and faster trains, typewriters, internal combustion engines, etc.
Q: Was John Henry concerned about his fellow steel drivers?
A: John Henry lived, worked and socialized with his coworkers day in and day out. A loyal comradeship developed between them as a result of the harsh, dangerous working conditions that they all endured. They knew each other as family, looking out for one another on and off the job. John Henry, who was intelligent with a possible education, would have known that he could beat the drill. Therefore, by challenging the drill and its operators to a contest and winning, he would ensure that his fellows’ livelihood that they and their family depended on for survival continued throughout the project.
John Henry’s ingrained love for his fellow man enabled him to look beyond himself, living and, unfortunately, dying in pursuit of making this world a better place, as we all should do. (The above synopsis is derived from the knowledge that has been acquired through research of material available and the insight of the author. As in all events new, past or overlooked information may be revealed, changing part or all of the narrative.)
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