Hommage du Hardy

Hommage du Collage

I have been unable to find out where he was hung, but have an idea that it was down in the southwest part, near Virginia; but I am not positive about this.

In other words,

his story is a story of one of the composite characters that so often arise in the land,—a man of kind heart, very strong, pleasant in his address, yet a gambler, a roué, a drunkard, and a fierce fighter.


                                "JOHN HARDY."

THE popular song "John Hardy" without doubt had its origin and development in West Virginia. The hero of this modern ballad was a Negro, whose prowess and fame are sung far and wide among his own race, and to a less extent among white folk. No written or printed statements concerning him are known to exist except an order in the courthouse at Welch, McDowell County, W.Va,, for his execution. However, the statements hereinafter given are believed to be thoroughly reliable.

In a letter dated Charleston, W.Va., Feb. 16, 1916, addressed to Dr. H. S. Green of that city, and written by the Hon. W. A. McCorkle, governor of West Virginia from 1893 to 1897, occurs the following:—

"He [John Hardy] was a steel-driver, and was famous in the beginning of the building of the C. & O. Railroad. He was also a steel-driver in the beginning of the extension of the N. & W. Railroad. It was about 1872 that he was in this section. This was before the day of steam-drills; and the drill work was done by two powerful men, who were special steel-drillers, They struck the steel from each side; and as they struck the steel, they sang a song which they improvised as they worked. John Hardy was the most famous steel-driller ever in southern West Virginia. He was a mangificent [sic!] specimen of the genus Homo, was reported to be six feet two, and weighed two hundred and twenty-five or thirty pounds, was straight as an arrow, and was one of the most handsome men in the country, and, as one informant told me, was as 'black as a kittle in hell.'

"Whenever there was any spectacular performance along the lines of drilling, John Hardy was put on the job; and it is said that be could drill more steel than any two men of his day, He was a great gambler, and was notorious all through the country for his luck in gambling. To the dusky sex all through the country, he was the 'greatest ever,' and he was admired and beloved by all the Negro women from the southern West Virginia line to the C. & O. In addition to this, he could drink more whiskey, sit up all night and drive steel all day, to a greater extent than any man ever known in the country.

"John Hardy (colored) killed another Negro over a crap game at Shawnee Camp. This place is. now known as Eckman, W.Va. (the name of the P.O.). The Shawnee Coal Company was and is located there. Hardy was tried and convicted in the July term of the McDowell County Criminal Court, and was hanged near the courthouse on Jan. 19, 1894. While in jail, he composed a song entitled 'John Hardy,' and sung it on the scaffold before the execution.



"Hardy hung in '94 in present courthouse yard, though not such at the time. At time of execution some white man in the crowd started a panic by yelling, 'O Lordy! O Lordy!' Officers had to jail some twenty-five or thirty men before execution could safely be concluded.



Mr. A. C. Payne, English, W.Va., in a letter dated Oct. 16, 1917, writes me as follows:—

"Just received your letter requesting information of a Negro named John Hardy, I was one of the jury that convicted him. He was a miner about 6 feet high and about 25 years old, as well as I could guess at him. He killed a Negro boy about 19 years old. And he was a very black Negro. That is about all I know about him."

John Hardy was a bad, bad man,

              He came from a bad, bad land;

He killed two men in a Shawnee camp,

              Cause he's too damn nervy for to run,

                            God damn!

                                John Hardy went to the rock quarrie,


                     He went there for to drive, Lord, Lord!


              The rock was so hard and the steel so soft,


            That he laid down his hammer and he cried,

"O my God!"



                                 He laid down his hammer and he

                      cried



John Hardy was but three days old,

                               Sitting on his mamma's knee
                              When he looked straight up at her and said,


                               The Big Bend Tunnel on the C. & O. Road
                            Is bound to be the death of me."



John Hardy drew to a four card straight, And the Chinaman drew to a pair, John failed to catch,

                               and the Chinaman won,

And he left him sitting back dead in his chair,

And he left him lying dead in his chair.

The following statement was made to me in person in the summer of 1918 by Mr. James Knox Smith, a Negro lawyer of Keystone, McDowell County, who was present at the trial and also at the execution of John Hardy:—

"Hardy worked for the Shawnee Coal Company, and one pay-day night he killed a man in a crap game over a dispute of twenty-five cents. Before the game began, he laid his pistol on the table, saying to it,

'Now I want you to lay here; and the first niggeer that steals money from me, I mean to kill him.'

About midnight he began to lose, and claimed that one of the Negroes had taken twenty-five cents of his money. The man denied the charge, but gave him the amount;
                  

                   whereupon he could look out and see the men buildin his    scaffold;  and he walked up and down his cell, telling the rest of the prisoners that he would never be hung on that scaffold.