There he lay until 1992, when a wrecking crew tearing down the old penitentiary buildings disinterred the skeletons of 300 black men. John Henry died at the Lewis Tunnel, Nelson speculates, and because the contract stipulated “damages of one hundred dollars for each prisoner not returned,” his body was shipped back for burial. Since black convicts could be forced to do contract labor, John Henry was assigned to the C&O, which could not attract workers at $1 a day to blast through rock and kick up lethal clouds of silica dust. According to legend, he was born with a hammer in his hand. He is also the protagonist from the short film of the same name, which can be seen on Disneys American Legends (2001). Although Wiseman did not reside at his store, prosecutors indicted John Henry for housebreaking as well. John Henry is one of the legends in American Legends. He was charged with a felony (stealing property worth $20 or more), even though an auditor had estimated the total value of goods at Wiseman’s at the time at about $50. Initially, he sought to replace Superman after Superman was killed by Doomsday. He is a genius engineer who built a mechanized suit of armor that replicates Superman s powers and bears Supermans logo. Henry was arrested in 1866 for a theft at Wiseman’s grocery store. Steel (John Henry Irons) Steel is a fictional superhero who appears in comic books published by DC Comics. Nelson demonstrates that his John Henry was railroaded by the racists who ran the criminal justice system. In “Steel Drivin’ Man,” Nelson can make only a circumstantial case that his John Henry – who was 5-foot-1 1/4 – was “the man.” But his deft detective work, in effect, serves as a search warrant, authorizing him to drill deep down into the scorched earth of the South in the years after the Civil War to lay bare the lives of blacks under the notorious Black Codes. Contracted out to work for the C&O Railroad in 1868, prisoner number 497 disappeared from the records in 1874 – around the time the legend appeared. Nineteen years old, with a scar on each arm, John Henry was serving 10 years in the Virginia State Penitentiary. A professor of history at the College of William and Mary, Scott Reynolds Nelson, has found a John William Henry in the manuscript census for 1870. But until now, no one knew whether a real man was a model for the myth. John Henry has remained an icon, especially among young blacks. In the 1930s, the “steel drivin’ man” may have been the model for the man of steel – Superman. In almost 200 folk songs, John Henry drives steel into the Allegheny Mountains for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in a race against a steam drill: “John Henry, O John Henry, Blood am runnin’ red! Falls right down with his hammah to th’ groun’, Says, ‘I’ve beat him to the bottom but I’m dead.”‘ Originally a cautionary tale about hard work, suffering and death, the ballad turned heroic in the 20th century.īigger and more boastful, John Henry represented the powerful potential of the working class. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu
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