The Deep Cuts Folk Characters of America:
America has an interesting roster of mythologized folk heroes. Its cast of mythologized characters is unique on the globe, and so today I thought I’d shine a light on some of the lesser-known folk heroes of the American cultural consciousness. Everybody knows Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, Buffalo Bill, and Davy Crocket, but why should the list stop there?
Annie Oakley (B. 1860): What do you do when you’re a poor girl born in 1860s Oklahoma? Why, become one of the greatest marksmen of all time, of course. She was known for winning a contest at the age of 15, shooting dimes mid-air, cards edge-on, cigarette out of her husband’s mouth, over her shoulder using a hand mirror, and staring in one of Edison’s first motion pictures.
Casey Jones (B. 1886): A speedy railroad engineer who liked to take risks more than fall behind, which led to his death in a dramatic train crash. Jones sped a late train along at record pace and eventually caught up so that he was only 2 minutes behind schedule. Unfortunately, due to mismanagement and a blind left turn his train crashed into a passenger train. Although he died, he commanded the speaker to jump off and managed to singlehandedly reduce the train’s speed enough so that no one else perished. He got a folk song (once parodied by Johnny Cash) about his death.
High John the Conqueror / Johnny de Conqueror: High John the Conqueror was said to have been born a prince in Africa (possibly the Congo), but was taken to America and enslaved. There, he tricked his masters time and time again and also outsmarted the devil himself (with a little magical assistance). He supposedly left for Africa at a certain point but left some of his power in the root of a plant that still bears his name.
Zora Neale Hurston (author of Their Eyes Were Watching God) documented African American folklore of the South in The Sanctified Church and noted High John de Conqueror, of whom she wrote “Like King Arthur of England, he has served his people. And, like King Arthur, he is not dead. He waits to return when his people shall call him again ... High John de Conquer went back to Africa, but he left his power here, and placed his American dwelling in the root of a certain plant. Only possess that root, and he can be summoned at any time.” (Hurston 1943)
Molly Pitcher: A Revolutionary War hero, she has multiple theorized identities, and is a sort of catch-all term for the aid of many women during the Revolutionary War. For example, an individual named Mary Ludwig Hays initially joined the Revolutionary Army as a water carrier, but eventually took over for her husband as a cannon loader, and was commended by George Washington. A private at the time recorded, “While in the act of reaching a cartridge. . . a cannon shot from the enemy passed directly between her legs without doing any other damage than carrying away all the lower part of her petticoat. Looking at it with apparent unconcern, she observed that it was lucky it did not pass a little higher, for in that case it might have carried away something else, and continued her occupation.” (Joseph Plumb Martin 1778)
Stack-O-Lee: A guy shot another guy over a hat in St. Louis. . . Apparently, this was grounds for celebrity back in the day. Of course, somebody wrote a song about it that eventually was redone over 400 times, including by artists Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and supposedly even Elvis.
Captain Stormalong: ‘Alfred Bulltop Stormalong’ is one of the more fairytale-esque characters, and originated in the Northeast of the U.S. A giant, he boarded his first ship at the age of 12, but soon outgrew regular life and made his own giant ship. This ship, the legend holds, was so large that it had hinged masts, so that they would not hit the moon, and horses were required to transport the crew across its deck. The ship was the fabled cause of many natural phenomena, like ramming into Panama made the canal, and its scraping up against the Cliffs of Dover whilst stuck in the English Channel turned them white.
Railroad Bill (B. 18??): Morris Slater was a proper African American Robinhood after he was thrown off of a moving train for hitching a ride. He fired back at the man who threw him off and was hunted by the police and vigilantes for years before capture. His escape of the authorities over a dozen times quickly turned him into a folk hero popular among African American communities as a character untamable by those in power. Even after he was killed in a gunfight in March 1896, his story lived on as a unique example of a distinctly American story of the fight against power.
Jigger Johnson (B. 1871): Born in Maine, he spent most of his time knocking around the Northeast and Northern Midwest, drinking, fighting, trapping with his bare hands, potato racing, and drinking some more. His exploits include biting a man’s ear off at the ripe old age of 12, blowing up a fire watch tower with moonshine, and capturing (alive) a bobcat for the University of New Hampshire. He now has a campsite named after him in New Hampshire.