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My Great Grandma would always say,'Whoa,there,John Henry!'whenever any of us grandkids got over zealous during any given task.
I asked Grandma once, 'Who is John Henry?' My Grandma wasn't too sure,but told me that her own Mother used to scold her with
the same line.
This gots me to thinking...and I found the story. Seems there really was a Real John Henry and heres his story...
John Henry
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 O&R 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.
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