![]() ![]() Extension lines were built to the western frontier and to the south that later became parts of other railroad companies, so the timing of the legend is important in determining where the events of the ballad may have taken place. The railroad construction connected towns and created them, as it made it easier to move coal from Ohio and Pennsylvania to eastern ports, and to improve transportation of goods across the eastern states. The locations given for the events of the ballad vary, but most link it to the introduction of steam-drills during the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, which would have been in the 1870s or early 1880s. In most of these accounts he was described as African American, either a freed slave working for pay or a prisoner working on a chain gang. Johnson and Louis Chappell in the 1920s, but these accounts differ as to the location of the events, how they transpired, and whether Henry died of exhaustion or survived the contest and died later in an explosion. There are also oral histories of people who claimed to have known John Henry collected by Guy B. In some versions he is buried near "the White House," and this is seen as a clue to the original events by some historians. In most versions his wife is called to his side as he dies. The legend, told both as a narrative and as a ballad, concerns "steel driving," or drilling, that is, using a hammer and steel chisel to make dynamite holes to clear rock in the construction of a railroad tunnel, and a contest between one of the fastest and strongest workers, John Henry, and a steam-powered drilling machine. This song includes a verse with the lines "Must be the hammer, the hammer that killed John Henry. An example is the work song " Take This Hammer," performed by Joe Brown and a group of convicts at Raiford Penitentiary, Florida (recorded by John and Ruby Lomax in 1939). The legend of John Henry is also told as a narrative, and references to the legend occur in other songs. Joe Brown sings the song as a blues ballad accompanied on guitar, with more verses than in the work song versions and Gabriel Brown sings only one verse and uses the tune as the basis for blues improvisation on guitar. The song probably originated as a work song, like these versions, for work involving the use of a hammer. The recordings available online include Arthur Bell singng the song while beating time as if hammering and Harold Hazelhurst singing " John Henry" as a work song for driving railroad spikes. Several versions of the ballad "John Henry" may be found in the collections of the American Folklife Center. Prints and Photographs Division, LOT 7414-C, no. Pictured performing with Rochelle French. ![]() Gabriel Brown (left), who performed blues variations on "John Henry" on guitar for Alan Lomax, Zora Neale Hurston, and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle in Eatonville, Florida, 1935.
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