Like the hard rock miners of the West, tunnel workers often held contests to see who the best steel-driver was in camp. The contest planned at Big Bend would go down in history because the company challenged John Henry to beat the steam drill.
What happened next is described in the John Henry ballad.
John Henry said, "before I'll let that steam drill beat me down, I'll die with my hammer in my hand." With human skill, muscle, endurance, and determination, he drilled faster than the new-fangled, steam-powered machine.
The man that invented the steam drill,
He thought he was mighty fine,
But John Henry he made fourteen feet
While the steam drill only made nine, Lord, Lord
The steam drill only made nine.
John Henry hammered on the mountain
Till his hammer was striking fire.
He drove so hard he broke his poor heart,
Then he laid down his hammer and he died, Lord, Lord,
He laid down and his hammer and he died.
Is the John Henry legend is true? This is the subject of fierce debate.
In the early 1900s folksong collectors began reporting on various versions of the John Henry ballad. Two professors -- Louis Chappel of West Virginia University (1928) and Guy Johnson of the University of North Carolina (1933) -- tried to find historical evidence of the famous contest. While they identified over 60 versions of the song, much of the personal testimony they collected was conflicting.
But John Henry was a real person. He was one of thousands of African American workers who built the railroad and its tunnels. His story has been represented in fiction, art and theater. The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress has collected over 100 versions of the Ballad of John Henry, the most widely-recorded folk song in the United States.
The greatest hero in American folklore is a Black worker who with great skill, strength and a big heart had the courage to challenge the machine and win.
He died but his hammer is still ringing.
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