GUEST,RBH, sapengro@onebox.com, writes:

******* In a codicil to my great, great, great grandfather's will, dated November 22, 1854, he made the following bequest to one of his daughters: "Secondly I desire that JOHN HENRY my yellow boy go to ------- -------- my daughter in lieu of Charles who is now dead."

Given that this John Henry was a boy in 1854, putting him in the correct age range, and living about 7 miles from where the tunnel was to be built 16 years later, and that his name is "John Henry," (not Henry or John, or rumored to have been) I had expected that I would have found this information had been made available and its merits discussed. *******

Information like this could be valuable, but until some further connection is made it is hard to know what to do with it. There is no shortage of men named "John Henry." As Uncle Beverly Standard put it to Guy Johnson (quoted from Johnson's book): "Which John Henry do you want to know about? I've known so many John Henrys."