Lighter: Even if, as occurs to me, Spencer wrote a "7" that was misread (or misprinted) as a "2," the possibility of coincidence would remain at 14%.

Me: I have seen the original. It is clearly "1882," not "1887." Spencer gave dates for other tunnel jobs that were several years too early. He said he was about 14 years old when he knew John Henry. His testimony came 40 years later. "Holly Springs" and "1882" are not his only errors of fact but I think all of them are easily corrected and can be considered reasonable for the circumstances. He got a lot right in his testimony.

Lighter: You know from your own research that there was in fact a "John Henry" working on that tunnel.

Me: No, I don't think I do. What we have is the testimony of Spencer, Barker, Cummings, an article from 1930 citing many, an article from 1955 citing several, and lots of people still living around Leeds and Dunnavant. The veracity of other parts of the testimony of these people supports the idea that they are good witnesses, suggesting that their claims about John Henry ought to be believed. The Alabama testimony is much more coherent than the West Virginia testimony. There is no testimony (or legend) at all about John Henry in Virginia. It would be nice to have further testimony about the race with a steam drill but I think that at this date some kind of further documentation could more likely be found.

Lighter: ...a mere three persons...

Me: Three in 1927, an article in 1930 citing many, an article in 1955 citing several, many living around Leeds and Dunnavant (as noted above). What especially impresses me about the three in 1927 is that there is obviously no collusion among them. It seems extremely unlikely that they knew one another in any way. It seems even less likely that the Jamaicans who knew the names "Shea"/"Shay" and "Dabney"/"Dabner" had ever had any contact with the people from Utah and Michigan who knew the same thing.

Lighter: But it seems to me that proof is still just beyond reach. The results of your research, though, are worthy of more notice than they've gotten in the media so far. Interested newspeople have heard about the "Big Bend tunnel on the C&O road" all their lives and may assume that everyone "knows" that's where a contest occurred and that research focused on West Va. is "finally filling in the blanks."

Me: I certainly can't and don't claim "proof." My best argument, it seems to me, is to challenge critics to provide a reasonable explanation of the facts based on the assumption that John Henry was *not* in Alabama. It is the probabilities of such alternative explanations that concern me. I think those probabilities must be quite low.

Scott Nelson's research is not filling in the blanks for West Virginia. His "John Henry" was at Lewis Tunnel in Virginia. Thus, he joins me in being a Big Bend skeptic. However, his reason for rejecting Big Bend is spurious, that no steam drills were used in construction there. Johnson and Chappell were both well aware of that fact and persisted in placing John Henry at Big Bend because there was testimony that a steam drill had been brought in for a test. My reason for rejecting Big Bend is the incoherence of the testimonies of the dozen or so men, interviewed by Johnson and Chappell, who had worked on Big Bend Tunnel. They split half-and-half "for" and "against" John Henry's contest having been there. Their descriptions of John Henry were widely varied. The only one who claimed to have witnessed the contest was a very poor witness - evasive, giving little detail, saying that it was no big deal and that he had just looked in once in a while. In contrast, not only is C. C. Spencer a great witness, giving extraordinary detail, but the testimony of others supports some of his. In general, there is little contradiction among the testimonies of the "Alabama" informants. As a whole, their testimonies are coherent.

My work has gotten some notice. Stephen Wade featured it on NPR three years or so ago. It has been written up regularly in the local newspapers around Leeds, AL, and Athens, GA.