[1][2] According to researcher Scott Reynolds Nelson, the actual John Henry was born in 1848 in New Jersey and died of silicosis, a complication of his workplace, and not due to proper exhaustion of work.

[5][3] That tunnel was built near Talcott, West Virginia, from 1870 to 1872 (according to Johnson's dating), and named for the big bend in the Greenbrier River nearby.

Some versions of the song refer to the location of John Henry's death as "The Big Bend Tunnel on the C. & O.

At the time, penitentiary inmates were hired out as laborers to various contractors, and this John Henry was notated as having headed the first group of prisoners to be assigned tunnel work.

Arrested and tried for burglary, John Henry was in the first group of convicts released by the warden to work as leased labor on the C&O Railway.

[8]: 39 According to Nelson, objectionable conditions at the Virginia prison led the warden to believe that the prisoners, many of whom had been arrested on trivial charges, would be better clothed and fed if they were released as laborers to private contractors (he subsequently changed his mind about this and became an opponent of the convict labor system).

[4] The records Nelson found indicate that the contest took place 40 miles (64 km) away at the Lewis Tunnel, between Talcott and Millboro, Virginia, where prisoners did indeed work beside steam drills night and day.

Nelson stresses that John Henry would have been representative of the many hundreds of convict laborers who were killed in unknown circumstances tunneling through the mountains or who died shortly afterwards of silicosis from dust created by the drills and blasting.

[13]Destination Freedom, a 1950s American old time radio series written by Richard Durham, featured John Henry in a July 1949 episode.

Here was a song that told you what happened to men who worked too fast: they died ugly deaths; their entrails fell on the ground.

Songs featuring the story of John Henry have been recorded by many musical artists and bands of different ethnic backgrounds.

Bengalee singer-songwriter and musician Hemanga Biswas (1912–1987), considered as the Father of the Indian People's Theater Association Movement in Assam inspired by 'John Henry', the American ballad translated the song in Bengali as well as the Assamese language and also composed its music for which he was well recognized among the masses.

It was part of a set honoring American folk heroes that included Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill and Casey at the Bat.