Story Objectives:

• Identify tall tales as a type of fiction

• Identify the characters, plot, and setting of “John Henry”

• Identify exaggeration and larger-than-life characters as characteristics of tall tales

​In the 1860s, the United States was growing quickly. Immigrants were pouring in, and railroad companies were laying train tracks that would carry settlers west.

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One of the railroad companies was called the Chesapeake & Ohio, or the C&O for short. The C&O Railroad was named for the two bodies of water it was intended to connect: the Chesapeake Bay along the east coast and the Ohio River in the West.

​ The engineers who planned the C&O Railroad had to overcome many challenges in order to get trains from the Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio River, but no challenge was greater than this: they had to run their tracks through the Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachians were like a big wall that separated the east from the west.

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Sometimes, when the mountains were rolling, more like hills, the C&O workers were able to lay tracks over the top of them. Other times they were able to lay track that zig-zagged around the mountains, like a snake. But some mountains were too tall to go over, and too big to go around.

​ In those cases, the only solution was to dig a tunnel right through the mountain. Digging tunnels was dangerous work. The tunnels were dark and poorly ventilated. That means that there was barely enough fresh air inside the tunnels for the workers to breathe. Many workers were killed by sudden cave-ins. To dig the tunnels as fast as they could, railroad workers worked in teams of two.

​ One man would crouch down and hold a steel spike. Then the other man would hit the spike with a big hammer. The first man would twist the spike as much as he could. Then his partner would hit the spike with his hammer again. The two men would work together, banging and twisting, banging and twisting, until they had driven the spike deep into the rock. Then they would pull out the spike, move to another spot, and start digging a new hole.

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After a while, the rock would be full of holes, like a piece of Swiss cheese.

​ Next, the dynamite men would take over. The dynamite men would pack dynamite into the holes and detonate the explosives— KABOOM! 12 The explosions would break up the solid rock into rubble. Then the workers would haul away the rubble. And then they would start digging again.

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To make the long, hard day’s work go by faster, the railroad workers used to have contests. They would pick two teams and see which team could drive its spike farther into the mountain in a set amount of time. The winners of these contests became heroes. People would tell stories about these “steel-driving” men and their amazing feats. Another thing the railway workers did to pass the time while they worked was sing songs. Sometimes they would even sing songs about other steel-driving men.

​ One of these steel-driving men was named John Henry. No one knew for certain where John Henry was from. Some said he was from Georgia. Some said he was from Tennessee. Others said he was a Virginia man. As it turns out, it seems likely that he was a former slave. He seems to have started working on the railroads sometime after the end of the Civil War.

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For years people thought John Henry worked on the Big Bend Tunnel on the C&O line in what is now West Virginia; but now we think he more likely worked on the Lewis Tunnel in Virginia.

​ One thing we are sure of is that John Henry was a legend among railway workers. They sang a song that tells the story about how he was born with a hammer in his hand. John Henry became known as the most courageous man who ever worked on the railroad. Even as a young boy he could do the work of a man. They said he had never been defeated in a steel-driving competition. They said he hit the spike so hard that sparks flew through the air. They said John Henry could swing a ten-pound hammer from sunup to sundown and not even get tired.

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At first, almost all of the work on the tunnels was done by hand by workers like John Henry. Eventually, however, this began to change.

​ People invented machines that could do some of the work. One of the machines they invented was a steam drill. This was a drill that was powered by a steam engine. The first steam drills were pretty good, but they were not great. The steam drills could drive a spike into the mountain for sure, but not as well as two strong, experienced railway workers like John Henry and his partner. Over time the machines got better and better, and they eventually began to replace the men who worked on the railroad tunnels.

One day, the captain of John Henry’s work team brought a steam drill to the worksite. He bet that the steam drill could drive steel better than John Henry could. John Henry agreed to compete against the steam drill, and he swore he would do his best to beat it.

John Henry said to the captain: “Well, a man ain’t nothin’ but a man. But before I let a steam drill beat me down, I’ll die with a hammer in my hand. Oh, oh! I’ll die with a hammer in my hand.” ​

​One of the bosses blew a whistle. John Henry went to work driving steel the old-fashioned way, with a hammer and a spike. The captain started up the steam drill. It rattled away beside John Henry, belching steam and banging away at the mountain. The man and the machine worked side by side for several hours. Then the boss blew his whistle again.

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The bosses took measurements, and then they announced the results. John Henry had driven his spike a total of fifteen feet into the mountain. And the steam drill? It had only drilled nine feet. John Henry had won! He had beaten the steam drill!

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Now the man that invented the steam drill, He thought he was mighty fine. But John Henry drove his fifteen feet And the steam drill only made nine. Oh, oh! The steam drill only made nine!

​The other railway workers roared. They were excited that John Henry had won. He had shown that a hard worker was better than a machine! But John Henry himself was in no condition to celebrate. He had worked so hard that he had suffered a heart attack.

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John Henry hammered in the mountains, And his hammer was strikin’ fire. Well, he hammered so hard that it broke his poor heart, And he laid down his hammer and he died. Oh, oh! He laid down his hammer and he died.

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The railway men carried John Henry out of the tunnel. They laid him to rest with other workers who had died. But the legend of John Henry lived on. The C&O Railroad was completed a couple of years later. And for years to come, whenever locomotives went down the C&O line past the tunnel they thought John Henry helped dig, those who knew the story would say, “There lies John Henry, the king of the steel-driving men!”

​They took John Henry down the tunnel,

And they buried him in the sand.

This is the ending of “The Ballad of John Henry”.

And every locomotive comes a-roarin’ by Says,

“Yonder lies a steel-drivin’ man!

Oh, oh, yonder lies a steel-drivin’ man.”