DATE=May 2, 2002

TYPE=Dateline

NUMBER=7-36193

TITLE=John Henry: Tracking Down an American Legend

BYLINE=Giles Snyder

TELEPHONE=260-1623 (Editor)

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Neal Lavon

CONTENT=

DISK: DATELINE THEME [PLAYED IN STUDIO, FADED UNDER DATELINE HOST VOICE OR PROGRAMMING MATERIAL]

HOST: Just about every American has heard the folk ballad, John Henry. John Henry was the "steel-drivin' man" who used his sledgehammer and his strength to prove that a human could outwork a machine. In this edition of Dateline, Neal Lavon and Giles Snyder report on the John Henry legend and the two towns trying to turn the ring of John Henry's hammer into the ring of the cash register.

NL: According to the folksong, John Henry was an African-American who labored on the gangs that built America's railroads. He hollowed out holes in solid rock with nothing but a sledgehammer and a steel spike. Explosives were placed in those holes and detonated. The rock was cleared to make way for the tunnels that helped the railroad bridge America from coast to coast.

The story goes that a man brought an experimental steam drill to the railroad camp, claiming it could do the work faster and cheaper than the laborers. John Henry was matched against the steam drill in a test to see which was fastestman or machine. Using all of his mighty strength, John Henry beat the steam drill. But after his victory, the ballad says, John Henry was so spent, that he "laid down his hammer and he died, Lord, Lord, he laid down his hammer and he died."

Folklorists believe the song is based on an actual event and on a real man named John Henry. Some scholars place the contest in the mountainous state of West Virginia. Others believe it took place in the southern state of Alabama. As we hear in this report from Giles Snyder in Talcott, West Virginia, there's a lot riding on exactly where John Henry laid down his hammer and died.

TAPE: CUT 1 SFX CARS

GS: A small roadside park atop Southern West Virginia's Big Bend Mountain has been home to an imposing statue of John Henry since 1972. The park is little more than a roadside pullover that overlooks the Greenbrier River and the small community of Talcott. The statue was placed there because John Henry is said to have helped bore the Great Bend Tunnel through the bowels of the mountain and, in the process, achieve immortality by racing the steam drill. At the base of the mountain, Talcott community leaders have big plans to capitalize on John Henry's fame, according to longtime Postmaster Bill Dillon.

TAPE: CUT 2 - SFX DILLON AND CUSTOMER

TAPE: CUT 3 DILLON

"Since 1974, they've taken the tracks up out of the Great Bend Tunnel and a group of people including our county commissioners here in Summers County, are trying to acquire a piece of property that hasn't been used since 1932, and a tunnel that has not been used since 1974, to really develop a place here to honor the legend of John Henry."

GS: Talcott already hosts a well-attended annual John Henry Days festival, and a John Henry postage stamp was issued here in 1996. Now, community leaders dream of building a historical park at the mouth of the Great Bend Tunnel, complete with an amphitheater to stage an outdoor drama based on the legend, and a miniature steam train to take tourists on a four kilometer round trip through the tunnel. But if you listen to folklore researcher John Garst, all of these plans should be taken to Leeds, Alabama, some 750 kilometers to the southwest.

TAPE: CUT 4 GARST

"I think that they have a better claim than the Big Bend Tunnel area on the legendary John Henry and I think that based on my reading of two major books on the subject."

GS: Those two books were published within four years of each other, in 1929 and 1933. They're usually the first stop for John Henry researchers because the folklorists who wrote them had the opportunity to interview people who would have remembered the railroad worker. Both authors - Guy Johnson of the University of North Carolina and Louis Chappel (shuh-PELL) of West Virginia University, determined that the famous contest took place in Southern West Virginia. But that doesn't convince John Garst.

TAPE: CUT 5 GARST

"Well, I take a very contrary view to the conclusions of both Johnson and Chappell in their books. When I read their data, what I conclude is that they have proved that the steam drill and John Henry were never there."

GS: The retired chemistry professor and amateur historian says he thinks that John Henry's race against the steam drill actually took place in Leeds during the construction of a railroad tunnel there in 1887. Although there is currently no festival or statue at Leeds, there is local tradition to support the claim.

TAPE: CUT 6 VOYLES

"There is a photograph of the actual spike in the rock at Oak Mountain Tunnel, Alabama, that the railroad itself says was driven there by John Henry."

GS: Jerry Voyles runs a film production company in nearby Birmingham, Alabama. His father was a railroad man who worked with men who claimed they knew where the steam drill race took place.

[OPT]

TAPE: CUT 7 VOYLES

"Many, many people around that area have heard the same stories I'm talking about. Mine goes back to my father telling me over the years that that's the spot where he did race the steam drill. There is no festival, not that I'm aware of. They do not plan to have any or anything like that."

GS: But Mister Voyles has written a screenplay loosely based on John Henry and plans to start production this summer in the Leeds area. [END OPT]

TAPE: CUT 8 VOYLES

"Once again, there is no way to prove one way or the other, but it's just a lot of people who worked for the actual railroad at that time in that area said that's where the John Henry contest occurred. I think most of the older folks that live there would agree to that."

GS: When Professor Garst took a research trip to Leeds, it was Mister Voyles who took him on a tour of the area. Both men say evidence supporting Alabama's claim was too readily discounted by early folklorists. And Professor Garst theorizes that there were actually two John Henrys working on the railroadJohn Henry Martin who worked at Big Bend Mountain outside Talcott, and John Henry Dabney, who helped bore the tunnel at Leeds.

NL: We'll have more on the legend of John Henry. Now back to John Garst and how the beginnings of the famous ballad of John Henry.

TAPE: CUT 9 BALLAD OF JOHN HENRY (Snk under act)

TAPE: CUT 10 GARST

"I suspect that the ballad got started shortly after John Henry Dabney's death in Alabama in 1887. And that probably pretty quickly, certainly within the year, it was being sung in the vicinity of the Big Bend Tunnel. And I imagine that people there still remembered John Henry Martin. And so they formed this association. And John Henry Martin became the John Henry in their minds who raced the steam drill."

TAPE: CUT 9 BALLAD OF JOHN HENRY (UP FULL FOR VERSE)

"When John Henry was a little baby, sitting on his mammy's knee, he picked up a hammer, and he said, Lord, Lord, this hammer'll be the death of me..."

[OPT]

GS: There are literally dozens of versions of the John Henry ballad. And while Ken Sullivan, the Executive Director of the West Virginia Humanities Council, concedes that the ballad could have begun in Alabama, he doesn't think it did.

TAPE: CUT 11 SULLIVAN

"The preponderance of the evidence is definitely that the John Henry story originated in West Virginia. I am familiar with the Alabama version, there's another version that sets it in the Caribbean and I think that may speak to the universal nature of the story. But the research that's been done over seventy-five to eighty years certainly indicates that the actual battle with the steam drill took place at Talcott, in Summers County." [END OPT]

GS: The story of John Henry's race against the steam drill is so shrouded in myth that perhaps it's no wonder there are conflicting claims about where and even whether the contest took place. Brett Williams, the author of A Bio-Bibliography of John Henry, believes the famous railroad man was a real person. But she says it's what's not known about him that keeps his legend alive.

TAPE: CUT 12 WILLIAMS

"[OPT] He has lived mostly through song, almost completely through the ballad and some work songs and it's wonderful song but also in the song he is kind of this sketchy figure, we don't know much about him. And so we can embellish him. [END OPT] We can use our imaginations to make of him the kind of hero that we want. I think also he straddles several traditions. He's been an African American hero, a laboring hero who fights for the dignity of the work and the dignity of the worker. He's been a southern hero. He's been very important to West Virginians. He's also been sort of this guy who stands for the dignity of humanity. I think it's his versatility in part."

GS: Based on her research, Ms. Williams believes that John Henry's contest against the steam drill took place at Big Bend Mountain, but she acknowledges that there is no conclusive evidence that places the race in West Virginia … or in Alabama or anywhere else for that matter. But John Garst, whose paper on the subject is being published by the Alabama State Council on the Arts, says, in any case, the evidence isn't that important.

TAPE: CUT 13 GARST

"A lot of folklorists will tell you it's the legend that matters … not the facts. So, if it should turn out that the steam drill defeating John Henry and he really did his thing in Alabama, so far as legends go, I don't think that takes anything away at all from the very strong local tradition around Big Bend Tunnel."

GS: But it's the conviction among the people of Talcott that John Henry really did race the steam drill at Big Bend that keeps their dreams of capitalizing on his legend alive. I'm Giles Snyder in Talcott, West Virginia.

MUSIC: JOHN HENRY UP TO TIME.