A Peek at Summers County’s Past: John Henry Memorabilia

TALCOTT W.Va. (Hinton News) – Editor’s Note: Every week, local history collector William Jones discusses items from his collection and their historical significance. In this edition of A Peek into Summers County’s Past, Jones is talking about John Henry memorabilia.

The small statue seen in the photo is a miniature replica of the 8-foot-tall sculpture that now stands in John Henry Park in Talcott, West Virginia. I have been told that these small statues were one of the items that were sold to raise the funds to have the life-size sculpture placed over the Great Bend Tunnel, where he reportedly died while having a contest with a steam drill during the construction of the tunnel in the 1870s.

I just happened across this, what seems to be a rare piece of local history, while browsing through the catalog of Entrusted Auctions, which was conducting a sale in Roanoke, Virginia. I took a chance, won the winning bid, and had it shipped to my home in Pence Springs.

The only other one of these that I have ever seen sits in Big Four Drug Store in Hinton, West Virginia. While asking Mark Ellison about it he said it belonged to a man named Angotti and had sat there since he started serving the area as a pharmacist in 1976. The original card that came with this piece in 1971 tells about the planned statue of John Henry.

Sculptor Charles O. Cooper of Williamstown Gallery, Williamston Michigan was commissioned by the Hilldale-Talcott Ruritan Club to make a life-size statue of John Henry. The card further reads “…is eight feet tall, of bronze and in the spring of 1972 will be placed over the entrance of the Great Bend Tunnel where John Henry died.”

The old red caboose was placed at the right of the overlook. For years, members of the Ruritan Club sold John Henry memorabilia, which consisted of bumper stickers, salt and pepper shakers and many other items. As well as snacks and candy during the spring, summer and early fall to help raise funds for the roadside park area’s upkeep.

It didn’t take long until John Henry started to be vandalized. The statue was shot in several places. He was dragged off of his pedestal and down Tunnel Hill, which resulted in his being badly damaged. His hammer was stolen once. My father remembers he was struck by a car and damaged. And then the whitewashing that occurred for decades during homecoming. I remember riding the bus to school, and every morning, after all of the roads had been painted, I saw white paint splattered all over his bright black paint.

This ended, for the most part, in 2012 when John Henry was restored. He was relocated inside the John Henry Historical Park and placed in front of the tunnel where the competition occurred. He is no longer whitewashed, but I saw this summer while at the park that he again has a bullet hole in his neck. Vandalism is almost impossible to stop on an iconic structure like the statue, which has a long history of falling victim to it. 

Another item that was produced in 1972 to commemorate the statue was a Jim Beam whisky decanter. I have two of them. My grandfather bought them, one for my uncle and one for my mother, Cheryl Jones. He always kept tape on either side of the seal to make sure it was never broken. You can most definitely say the 51-year-old whisky the decanters hold can be called “aged whisky,” ha.

In 1996, the United States Postal Service created a “Folk Heroes” series of stamps. One of which was John Henry. The United States Postal Service’s original plan was to unveil the stamp in Pennsylvania. Bill Dillion, who is now retired from the postal service having served his career as postmaster of the Talcott Post Office advocated for it to be released in Talcott, West Virginia. He worked tirelessly until they agreed to host the unveiling of the stamp in Talcott where the battle that would later make him a folk hero occurred.

Bill served as grand marshall of the John Henry Days parade in 2022. This was very fitting since it was the 25th anniversary of John Henry Days. It was appropriate that Dillion be honored in this way on its “silver jubilee.” Without his dedicated work to bring the stamp release to Talcott, John Henry Days would have most likely never occurred.

Mighty Casey, Paul Bunyan, John Henry and Pecos Bill were the four figures in this series of stamps. I have a full uncut sheet of the John Henry Stamps that my grandmother Bea Thompson bought me in 1996. She also purchased both size envelopes, placed one of the John Henry stamps on them and then mailed them to herself from the Talcott Post Office so they would be canceled with Talcott’s stamp. They are now framed and hanging in what will become our short-term rental house in Talcott called “Camp John Henry,” which is decorated with all of the other John Henry and railroad memorabilia I have collected since I was a child, as well as early photographs of Talcott.

If you have a story from Summers County’s history to share, send an email to news@hintonnews.com.