John Henry Part 3

At the sound of the day’s whistle, the outcome was already known but the length of measure confirmed it. John Henry had drilled 14’ to the steam drill’s 9. Man had apparently won. The crowd cheered and the celebration began. Then all of sudden, not five minutes from winning, John Henry dropped dead.

Some say it was exhaustion. Others say it was the blood vessels done burst in his brain. Yet others say God took him because after that display, there was nothing left for a man to prove in this life! Whatever the case, the mighty John Henry was dead.

The salesman, being a quick thinking type, immediately pointed out that his machine was still ready to go. “Man may have won today, but I’ll win tomorrow!” he claimed. Everyone knew there was no other to challenge the steam drill the next day.

John Henry was quickly buried along the hundred others in a shallow, sandy grave outside the would-be tunnel. Some thought never to be spoke of again; forgotten like all the others.

Tragedy? Maybe. John won the contest only to loose his life and the steam drill eventually displaced all the other hammersmons. Bu many a hero and legend are not recognized until they move on from us. John Henry was about the individual. He possessed the raw strength that no system could take away form him.

How would you respond? When faced with a challenge, John Henry did not shrink away. When tackling a challenge, John Henry gave it his all. In this day when we, as individuals, are constantly being challenged by faster machines, corporate price saving policies and plans, how will you make your stand? How much are you willing to put on the line and also say “I am here and will not be easily dismissed.”

John Henry did not go quietly into the night, John Henry instead said, “You cannot defeat me, you may outlive me, but you won’t ever defeat me.” And they didn’t and that’s the stuff from which legends are made!

John Henry as told by "Billie Harold Jones" as told by Mike Jensen Part 2

John Henry had been born a slave and had been freed following the War. Although the work was ever as hard as it had been on the planation, John Henry now worked for himself; he worked as a free man. At 6 feet tall and 200 pounds, John Henry was a mountain of a man. His size, his determination and his swinging of his 14 pound hammer allowed him to drill 10-12 feet per day; a depth not matched by any other man!

One day a salesman came to the camp. “The day of the hammersmon is over!” He proclaimed. Leaning against his contraption he continued, “This here steam powered drill can out-drill any man, any day.” The crew foreman was interested. The crew was amazed... all except John Henry.

John Henry walked up to the machine, looked it over real good, looked at the salesman (who was now looking very small and very nervous), looked back at the machine and then with a smile beaming brighter by the second, he turned to the crew and said in that deep smooth voice, “Unless dat man 's me!” The crowd exploded in cheers.

“You might be a mighty man, but this here machine is the future. Men, like yourself, are well the past.” The salesman retorted, momentarily recapturing the attention of the crowd and immediately drawing all eyes to see what John Henry would have to say.

“Well, I seen da past an’ I donts know much about da future, but I do’s know bout the now. How ‘bout seeing for real just who’s the best, that machine of yours or me.”

“A contest?” asked the salesman.

“Yessir” responded John Henry as he continued to smile out to the approving crowd.

The salesman was also smiling at this point and exclaimed, “Gentleman we’ve got ourselves a contest!” And the crowd went wild.

The contest was set for the next day. Man vs. machine. After twelve hours, who could drill the deepest?

The next morning, John selected a 20 pound hammer and the best “shaker” he knew and at the sound of the whistle both he and the steam drill, operated by a foreman, went to work.

With both the steam drill and the sound of the twenty pound hammer going full speed, the mountain itself seemed to shutter. Like claps of thunder rolling up and down the Greenbrier River canyon, the sound of drilling filled the entire countryside.

Folks say that John Henry had never worked so hard. He was a man determined to show his stuff. On his shoulders rested the fate of the hammersmons, in his arms swung the hammer of hard work, and at the end of the hammer he drove the drill of determination: a determination to make his mark, a determination to say, “I am here!”

John Henry as told by "Billie Harold Jones" as told by Mike Jensen Part 1

On May 10, 1869 the Golden Spike was driven, completing the Transcontinental Railroad and joining once and for all the East to the West.

About the same time, there were other railroads being built. The war between the states had just concluded and President Lincoln had called for a healing. This healing would include the rejoining of the North and the South and again it was to be done by the railroads.

Somewheres around 1870, the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad was cutting a path through West Virginia and they were moving along quite fine, quite fine that was until they ran into the Big Bend Mountain. Big Bend Mountain was a mile and a quarter thick and it sat right in the middle of Green Brier River. Even the river had enough sense to go around and not try to cut through it. The men that ran the railroad were not like other men. They just set their mind to it and they just did it. To around the mountain would be an extra 7 miles of track, so they decided to go through it.

Saying you're going to go through a mountain and going through the mountain are two different things. The C&O railroad would soon find out that lesson as they would spend the next three years and 1000 men to build that tunnel. Hundreds of those thousand men died in the process as well. It was the making of a true tragedy, and it was, but it is also the thing Legends are born from. In in this case, that Legend is John Henry.

John Henry was a hammersmon. He drove steel spikes, called drills, in the rock by means of a hammer. A hammersmon had work with him another man called a "shaker". The shaker would shake and twist the drill following each hammer strike. This shake and twist kicked out the excess dust and kept the drill from wedging itself into the rock. The two would work the drill until they had drilled a hole deep enough to load with explosives and blasted out.

John Henry was, by the way, the best hammersmon around!