WEBVTT - Who was the real John Henry? 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:27.479 Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.800 the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians, choo too. Thank you as 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:35.400 always so much for tuning in. For super producer mister 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:39.640 Max Williams. Chug a chugga. 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:46.839 Higher locomotive guys, Ben, that's you. I'm no, I did 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.159 I do dig trains. I don't know what it is. 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.159 There's something in the mind of the young boy that 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:56.600 just makes you predisposed to digging machines. But I've mentioned 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.240 multiple times, Ben, as i've got a little older, I've 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.000 even first they're kind of gone down the rabbit hole 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.320 of engineering and you know, clockwork stuff. I mean, I 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:06.720 think you and I are both a little bit into 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:09.679 watches and all of that stuff these days. But yeah, 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:12.960 I get it, man, trains, locomote is all the moving parts, 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:14.280 the engineering of it all. 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:15.600 It's fascinating to me. 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.680 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's no Brown. I've been bullying 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.240 where We've got to mention one thing at the top 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.000 of Max. I don't want to put you on the 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:24.240 spot too much. 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:24.600 Max. 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:31.200 Not too long ago, Max, Max Williams, you and I 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:35.959 got involved in some pretty cool conversations about model trains 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.280 which you were. Pater Familius is a big fan of Oh. 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:40.680 Yeah, he's a mild train collector. 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:43.800 He loves it by the way, that means fare right, yes, 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.600 cool google, or like patriarchical gout it. We had a 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:52.880 episode back in twenty twenty four March twenty twenty four 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:54.480 called back to the Choo. 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:56.800 I'm not going to try this one vent. We had 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:59.000 an episode about model trains, back to the Tuture. 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:00.440 Yeah. 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:03.520 You know who else is really in the Monel trans 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.840 two people? Sebastian Bach from skid Row. There is an 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:10.160 episode of Trailer Park Boys where he is featured and 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:12.760 Neil Young. But I also just found out something else 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.920 interesting about Sebastian Bach. He briefly was in a Broadway 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:22.440 production of Jesus Christ Superstar and he got fired because 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:23.280 he was horrible. 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.840 He did the skid Row scream. 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:30.840 I thought you were gonna say he just kept going 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.280 to his trailer to play with train trailer. 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.600 Yeah, no, apparently I saw. You can find clips of 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:36.200 it if you want. 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.040 I was blissfully unaware of this, and it is fascinating 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:41.280 because he looks like he is in a very different 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:42.880 production than the rest of the cast. 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:43.919 Let's just leave it there. 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:48.400 Another thing that a lot of us are blissfully unaware 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:54.120 of in American society today is this house Yon era 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:59.600 of tall tales, larger than life American heroes from folklore 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:05.280 andrely guys. Remember we did a deep dive into a 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:12.040 heartwarming i'll call him thoroughly eccentric dude called Johnny Appleseed 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:13.079 or John Chapman. 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.519 Hmm. And I think we mentioned in that episode the 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:21.120 Disney shorts that featured a lot of these folks, and 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.040 there actually was a John Henry one that it came 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:26.639 a good bit later. The Johnny Appleseed one is quite 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.720 a bit older. But I believe the Walt Disney Animation 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:35.320 Studio released a short film detailing the myth, the urban legend, 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.400 the folkloric tale of John Henry the Steel Driving Man, 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:40.520 back in two thousand. 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:45.080 That is correct, and today we are tackling another story. 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:47.920 This is important to me. I think it's important to 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:52.280 all of us in the West especially. It's a story 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:56.560 that only grows more relevant as Americans and the world 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:03.000 overall grow increasingly concerned about the implications and consequences of 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:09.520 l m's AI and automation. It's the legend of John Henry, 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.640 most famous to a lot of grade school kids for 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.920 a ballad, and Nola, we're okay with it. I'd love 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.760 to share just a snippet of a version of this song. 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:22.320 Oh, surely it's in the public domain at this point. 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:30.239 Let's do it. When John Henry was a little baby boy, 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:33.360 you get hold him in the bomb of your hand. 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:46.680 He gave a long and lost man. What does it 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.279 mean to be a steel driving man? Ben? What does 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:49.720 it mean? 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:53.760 Ah? Yes, yes, this is a great question, which that's 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:57.679 one of the questions we can solve in today's episode, Nolan. 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.039 But we may not be able to solve all of 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.560 the questions about the legend of John Henry. As we'll see, 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:09.520 there's a mystery afoot, or, if you prefer, fellow ridiculous historians, 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.760 a mystery on the rails. What say we start with 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:13.360 the legend. 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:22.479 I certainly heard this tale when I was a youth 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.599 in primary school, though it may be something that has been, 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.719 you know, moved away from a little bit in modern times. 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:30.720 Not one hundred percent sure, I couldn't say, but it 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:34.719 seems like that's entirely likely, because I don't think that 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:39.159 a lot of the younger generation know much about John Henry, 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:41.240 the steel driving man. So according to the tale, he 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:43.280 was born a slave in eighteen forty. 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:46.080 It was freed after the Civil War. 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.200 John then found work as a steel driver for the 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.440 Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company. So I believe been a 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:58.479 steel driver is someone that hammers the kind of I 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.960 guess you could call them supports field sort of railroad 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:04.120 ties right into solid rock. 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:05.400 Well, they're not the same as the ties. 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:07.800 These are more for like building out the tunnels that 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:10.120 the trains would go into. So these would be like 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.520 having to hammer steal into the solid rock to help 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:17.760 build the supports for the railroads, you know, for hollowing 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:19.200 out these tunnels and mountains. 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.640 Yeah, you hollow out the tunnels by hammering into the rock, 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:29.279 creating a cavity wherein explosives of some sort are inserted, 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:35.200 which blows up more space right into whatever you're trying 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.240 to delve through. And then you move forward a little 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.520 bit at a time in these harsh weather conditions, and 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.040 then you blow it up again, and then you do 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.440 it again and again, add nauseum, until you get through 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:52.920 the mountain. And our buddy John Henry is widely renowned, 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:57.479 according to the legend, as the strongest, most efficient, best, 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.160 gosh darned steel driver in all the area. We do 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:05.039 have to mention that in real life steel driving at 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.920 this time in the eighteen hundreds, you're working in two 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.280 man teams. Like how a sniper as a spotter. If 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.560 you're a steel driver, you've got the hammer, but you've 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.600 got a second guy called the shaker, and they are 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.480 I feel like they don't get enough praise because they 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:24.760 have to crouch pretty close to the hole with a 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:29.240 little chisel and turn the drill after each time the 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:32.920 hammer blows. So it's like if you have ever folks, 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:37.000 if you've ever used hammers and carpentry or something like that, 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:39.640 you know you have to have one hand holding the 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.640 nail or a hair comb if you want to do 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:44.560 a smart trick, right, and then you got the other 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.840 your thumb if you're not careful, right, right. So think 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.840 of each member of the team as one of the hands. Right, 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:55.000 John Henry is the hand, but the hammer, the shaker 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:59.520 is the hand kind of holding the nail for our purposes. Uh, 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:03.760 it's it's huge work. The railroad that you mentioned there, 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:07.760 the cno is moving a log chew chewing along, but 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:11.960 they have a big problem ahead. According to the legend, 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:16.120 they have a mountain in West Virginia called the Big 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.760 Bend Mountain, and it's too large for them to go around, 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.320 so the only way out is through. They have to 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:28.760 blast blast the tunnel into something like one in a 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:31.080 fourth miles of solid rock one. 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.440 As you can imagine, this was dangerous work. This one 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:38.720 in particular, led it to a significant number of fatalities. 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:43.240 Nearly a thousand men died over the three years it 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:47.400 took to complete the project. John Henry, however, was resilient 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:52.200 af and survived all the while swinging a fourteen pound hammer. 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:57.960 He apparently could accomplish around ten to twelve feet of 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:02.560 pounding each day on his own. And and Ben I 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:04.160 was something was kind of ringing a bell, and I 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.600 was like, why am I thinking of Shaquille O'Neal uh here? 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.920 And it is because he played the character Steele in. 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:15.880 The movie version of the Marvel character Steele, whose name 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:20.640 as a civilian was John Henry. Steele not meant to 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:22.880 be John Henry himself, but inspired by I mean, he 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.120 was meant to be, like I believe, like a really 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.360 talented weapons smith and designer. 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.640 Oh that's crazy. I always thought that man. I always 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:35.240 thought Steele was a reference to d C comics. 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.360 It is DC. Okay, yeah, same character, but yeah, DC. 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:43.920 And And it's clearly like that's a great point because 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:49.439 it shows us how how brasilient this myth is even 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.960 in the modern day. So, according to the legend, on 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.839 to stage, as they're hammering through this fountain, strolls an 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.640 unidentified salesman and he's just like the guy I selling 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:05.560 monoails to Springfield from that legendary Simpsons episode. He's a 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.720 slick cat, his hair's pushed back, and he says, I've 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:14.120 got a solution. I've got an automated steam powered drill 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:17.600 that can outperform any living man. 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:18.439 Yikes. 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.200 Not good news for the steel driving men of the world. 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:26.920 This is quite controversial. So there is a. 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:29.319 Contest of sorts is organized. 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:34.680 John Henry being the top steel driver in the human race, 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:37.160 it would seem, at least in the region, was to 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:42.880 be pitted against this device. This this drill man versus machine. 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.400 The foreman would run the drill and John Henry, dual 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:51.480 wielding two twenty pound hammers, would try to compete with 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:53.840 it on his own and seeing who would come out 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:54.320 on top. 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:57.360 Yeah, he tried to solo it, just like at a 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:58.000 video game. 0:10:58.280 --> 0:10:58.600 Solo. 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.400 Yeah, yeah, you'll see that. His second, the Shaker, gets 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:08.040 increasingly ignored. In the legend, after thirty five minutes of 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:13.600 hand to steam drill competition, John Henry is victorious. He 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:17.320 has drilled two seven foot holes for a total of 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:22.000 fourteen feet. This new fangle drilled by contrast, only makes 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.760 one nine foot hole. And you know, like the subreddit, 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:30.000 everybody clapped, everybody cheers, they say, oh, John, you're the best. 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:33.880 Oh my gosh, oh khalu kalay, joyous day. And then 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:39.280 they realize that John himself has fallen down a blood 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.480 vessel burst in his brain. The hero of the rail 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:45.800 company has beaten the machine, but lost his life in 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:46.600 doing so well. 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:50.559 And it's, you know, it's it's a teachable moment on 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:52.920 both sides because on the one hand, yeah, did he 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:57.160 do a better job, Yes, but could he do it 0:11:57.480 --> 0:11:59.960 that way forever like the machine? 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:04.440 No? Right, yeah, yeah, exactly, that's our parable And that's 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.760 just one version of the story. Obviously, depending on where 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:12.040 you hear it. Sometimes the hammers have a different weight. 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:17.439 I think in the ballad he is attributed a nine 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:20.800 pound hammer, but other times it's fourteen, or twelve or 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:28.160 even twenty. The issue is that the story changes over time. 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:32.760 Other iterations come later, and they will claim John Henry 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:36.560 is not helping blow up these tunnels. Instead, he's one 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:40.520 of the guys who goes it, goes along the railway 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:42.280 lines and drives spikes. 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:42.960 Right. 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:44.559 That's why I'm a little confused. 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:46.480 I think that's sort of the version of the story 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.920 that I always heard, and I'm picturing John Henry, you know, 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:51.920 and driving those spikes along the railroad. 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:53.720 But there are multiple versions. 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:57.359 In this particular version, his mechanical opponent is an automated 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.360 rail fastening machine. But at the end of the day, 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.600 the results and the you know, moral of the story, 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:07.280 I guess is the same. So whatever you want to 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:10.520 call it a legend, a myth, a bit of folklore, 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:16.320 it's it's persevered and continued to take on new meaning 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:20.120 in the face of you know, further automation, like picture, 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:22.400 you know, the story of the Luddites, you know, throwing 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.120 printing presses off of cliffs and things like that. I mean, 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:30.200 we do have historical examples of human beings fighting back 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:32.560 against their mechanized replacements. 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.760 Yeah, that's that's the thing. Humanity, as you're saying, has 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:42.520 always had a very complicated relationship with innovation, technology, automation, 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.840 and John Henry speaks to that or the story at least. 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:50.680 He's been the subject of novels. The United States Postal 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:54.040 Service put out a postage stamp in his order. He's 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.280 been in animated films like the Disney Wolde you mentioned 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:00.120 at the top, and some of the uh, some the 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:04.400 adaptations of the ballad we played to start this episode. 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.720 Above all, we have to remember that John Henry Has 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:13.079 a Song is the single most well known and most 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:18.400 often recorded folk song of all of Americana. And that nuts. 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.080 And it makes sense because it does kind of have 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.040 this dual meaning and that it, you know, tells the 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.560 tale of American perseverance and building the railroads and all 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.160 of that, But then it also tells the tale of 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.600 the cruelty of capitalism, you know, the kinds of things 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:38.040 American folk singer Woody Guthrie, whose guitar famously bore the 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:42.800 words this machine kills fascists. Yeah, I would have sung, 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.120 So it really does. It has that nostalgia quality, but 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:50.120 it also has that painful twist of, you know, the 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.160 lie of the American dream in many ways, or at 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.160 least the stilted truth of it. 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.680 Yeah. Yeah, it always reminds me of a later band 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:04.480 rage against the machine, which encapsulates a lot of a 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.760 lot of the same lessons, the morals, the parables. So 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:13.000 we can all easily understand, especially in these troubled times, 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:17.080 why so many people identify with the heroic character of 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:21.080 John Henry here. But today's question is how much of 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:26.920 that story is true? And Noel max fell ridiculous historians, 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.040 as we found, when you search for the truth about 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:37.480 John Henry, things can quickly go off the rails. 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:49.160 Not apologizing they sure can, obviously, the stuff of folklore 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:52.960 typically evolves from a kernel of truth, from a real person, 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:55.440 from a real event, but then has a way of 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:59.200 kind of through that historical game of telephone, taking on 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:01.280 a life of itself, and as you said, Ben, even 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:06.960 creating multiple versions depending on the teller and the circumstances, 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:09.080 and can also evolve kind of with the times. 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.880 Absolutely well said, we know it is true. We know 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:17.240 several things are true. It is true that railroad companies exist, 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:19.760 so you know, it was a railroad company that existed 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.960 at the time. It is true that they hired thousands 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:27.200 of dudes to smooth out the trade and to cut 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:32.320 through obstacles, including mountains and other protuberances that stood in 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:36.600 the way of their railroad tracks. It's also true that 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.080 steel drivers were a real thing and they did work 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.440 the way described in the legend. But when we get 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:45.280 to like to your point, Noel, when we get to 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.280 the actual John Henry, there's so much debate still in 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:54.520 the modern day. And it's crazy because we always mentioned 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.880 the game of telephone, right, The sheer popularity of this 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:02.320 folk tale makes the research difficult. And I got to 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.320 tell you guys, also, the fact that his name is 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:09.719 like John Henry instead of John wickenstatt Borough or something 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.960 makes it tougher because there are a lot of people 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:18.719 named John Henry or yeah, exactly right. So even if 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:23.920 he was a real single entity, even if we accept 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:27.560 that for the sake of conversation, folks still don't agree 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:33.359 on where or how everything went down. And this this 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:39.960 historical investigation dates way back, like in the nineteen twenties. 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.480 You can find people investigating this so. 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:44.320 Back in the nineteen twenties, a guy by the name 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:49.800 of Guy Benton Johnson, a sociologist. He did some digging 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:54.800 into the provenance of the John Henry myth legend folklore 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:59.080 and concluded that there was a John Henry that might 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:04.119 have worked for the railroads, specifically for the Chesapeake and 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:09.240 Ohio Railroad Company during that massive Big Bend Tunnel construction project. 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:13.120 The way he puts it is, one can make out 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:15.960 a case either four or against it. 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:21.680 Okay, okay, let's do the case four. Perhaps start yeah. 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:26.040 But also he's kind of shrugging, right, he said, you 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.520 can say whatever you want. You could say John Henry 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:33.199 is definitely real, or you can say John Henry definitely 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:38.479 didn't do this. It's weird do He does do a 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:42.320 lot of like boots on the ground looking at this. 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:46.280 He says, all right, we know the tunnel really was built, 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.640 and it took from eighteen seventy to eighteen seventy two 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.600 to make it. And he says, I'm going to go 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:55.760 I'm going to interview people in the area and see 0:18:55.800 --> 0:19:00.600 if anybody has a first hand recollection or written proof 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:05.199 of what happens. And he finds a guy who swears 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.920 up and down that he knew the John Henry personal 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:14.119 or you could say another guy, another guy named John Henry. 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:15.160 Yeah, exactly. 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:17.600 And you know, to your point, Ben, it being something 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.159 of a common name, especially for the times, is it 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:24.440 does become harder and harder to you know, run down 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:26.120 the reality of the situation. 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:28.119 And here's how Johnson puts it. 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:31.159 So, this man known as Neil Miller told me in 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:33.520 plain words, how he had come to the tunnel with 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.960 his father at seventeen, how he carried water and drills 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:38.720 for the steel drivers. He was sort of a steel 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:42.000 drive and caddy of sorts. That's me, not Johnson. How 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:44.679 he saw John Henry every single day, and finally, all 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.000 about the contest between John Henry and the stem drill. 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:48.960 This seems promising, Ben. 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:53.159 Right, Yeah, it seems it has specificity, right, and it 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:59.040 seems like the guy is sharing genuine memories. We know 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:03.320 our buddy. Neil Miller continues, and when he is talking 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:07.560 to this sociologist Johnson, he describes the legend of John 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.119 Henry pretty much beat for beat, and the only big 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:16.200 difference is that he says John Henry doesn't die immediately. 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:19.960 He carries on a little bit after the fact, and 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:24.480 then Miller also says, yeah, there was definitely a steam drill. 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.679 Let me describe what the steam drill looked like. So 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:31.320 he's talking to the sociologist who was essentially a folklorist 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:35.000 at this point, and our buddy Johnson is listening to him, 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:38.920 and he's writing down notes and dimensions, and so from 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.840 these he makes a sketch of what that steam drill 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.720 would have looked like. And he goes back and he 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:48.960 looks at photos of early steam drills that would have 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:52.440 been around at the time, and he says, Okay, this 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:56.800 looks legit. So as you said, Noel, it's promising until 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:58.119 there's another turn. 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:00.640 A bit of a twist not in the favor of 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:06.359 this tale. Sadly, Johnson contacted Sino Railroads themselves themselves, and 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:12.400 their chief engineer C. W. Johns stated with zero uncertainty 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:16.439 that no steam drills were used in the construction of 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:20.920 Big Bend. Unfortunately, John's wasn't able to provide a whole 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.920 lot more information. All the records from that period, he said, 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:26.600 burned up in a fire. 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:27.960 Convenient. 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:28.720 I was about to. 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:32.199 Say, but I would think that technology wise, if you 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:35.680 were like the historian for a company like that, you'd 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:37.920 probably have a decent sense of the kind of equipment 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:38.600 that was in play. 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:42.359 Yeah, yeah, that's a great point there, Noel, We know 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:47.680 that from Johnson's research in the late nineteen twenties. In 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:52.040 his estimation, we do have a John Henry, and this 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.720 John Henry is in West Virginia. But there are clearly 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:59.359 contradicting accounts of what went down, whether a steam drill 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:02.359 was in the middle, and there is no documentation to 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:06.800 prove it either way. They're just oral recollections. But there 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:10.040 are other opinions. We got a fast forward to two 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:13.919 thousand and six. This is some banger research by an 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:16.200 astorian named Scott Reynolds Nelson. 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:19.879 In his book Steel Driving Man John Henry, The Untold 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.920 Story of an American Legend, Reynolds Nelson argues that Henry 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:26.800 was in fact a real guy born in New Jersey 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:32.399 in eighteen forty eight. He found this information using a 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:37.920 different source than had previously been tapped, unanalyzed prison records 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:42.240 from the Virginia Penitentiary, and in that he found a 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:46.600 nineteen year old African American man with three different names 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:50.880 on paper, John Henry, John W. Henry, and John William Henry. 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:54.600 Now are these all the same guy or these three 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:58.639 different jobs? You know what I mean? This is a pickle. 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:04.240 At the time, we know that penitentiary inmates were often 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:10.440 hired out as laborers to various private companies. John Henry is, 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:15.280 according to Nelson's research, noted as having been part of 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:20.240 the first group of prisoners assigned railroad tunnel work. And 0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:25.320 Nelson also looked at CNO's tunneling records, which is surprising 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:29.439 because he found stuff that apparently hadn't burned up in 0:23:29.480 --> 0:23:29.880 a fire. 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:34.840 Ah okay, curious, sir, exactly. Ben. 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:39.360 So, with all of this newfound information, Nelson speculated that 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:42.600 his John Henry might well have come to Virginia in 0:23:42.720 --> 0:23:46.000 order to help clean up battlefields after the Civil War, 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:49.960 then been arrested for burglary. And we should talk a 0:23:50.000 --> 0:23:52.359 little bit about the black Codes. That could be an 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:56.720 episode unto itself in the brutally hypocritical way that these 0:23:57.040 --> 0:24:02.639 freedmen were treated after already having gone through such horrific circumstances. 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:04.560 That's a maybe a conversation for another day. 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:04.760 Ben. 0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:08.639 Then at that point he became potentially one of the 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:12.919 many convicts that were pushed into least labor for the 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:14.840 C and Oil Company, which I would argue, Ben, and 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:16.360 I think this is where you're heading as well. 0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:19.359 Is so sort of almost a form of like indentured servitude, right. 0:24:19.760 --> 0:24:24.600 One hundred percent, Yeah, this is definitely I agree. We've 0:24:24.640 --> 0:24:27.160 got to make an episode about the Black Codes in 0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:33.960 the future. Their primary aim was to put as many 0:24:34.520 --> 0:24:40.359 newly freed African American people into the prison system as possible, 0:24:40.800 --> 0:24:44.280 so all of the stuff you could be convicted of 0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:50.960 carried cartoonishly overbearing fines and a lot of jail time. 0:24:51.320 --> 0:24:55.760 And one of the silliest, most evil things about the 0:24:55.800 --> 0:25:00.200