The Real Story of Casey Jones

By Ben B. Johnston

 

Come all you rounders for I want you to hear
The story of a brave engineer.
Casey Jones was the rounder's name . . .

 

As a matter of fact, his name was John Luther Jones. The "Casey" was applied to our brave engineer because he was born in the little town of Cayce, Kentucky. Yes, Casey Jones was born and walked the earth (as Roark Bradford phrases it) "a natchal man." This may come as a surprise to many, for Casey Jones has entered the folklore of America like Paul Bunyan, John Henry and others who, if they ever had any actuality, had it as part of a composite character typical of a peculiar class.

Even Carl Sandburg, careful researcher that he is, seems to accept the theory that the ballad of Casey Jones was a piece of imaginative versifying, for he says in his "American Songbag;"

"The Leighton brothers, artists and vaudevillians, built a Casey Jones song on earlier tunes and verses of folk song character; they gave it in their act for audiences . . . Then came the sheet music version, widely popular. Lumberjacks, college girls, aviators and doughboys have made versions of their own . . . Songs are like people, animals, plants. They have genealogies, pedigrees, thoroughbreds, cross-breeds, mongrels, strays and often a strange love-child . . . The Casey Jones song may stem from several earlier pieces that have the same gait, freckles, disposition, color of hair and eyes. Among such earlier pieces are 'Brady, Why Didn't You Run?' 'Jay Gould's Daughter,' 'On the Charlie So Long,' 'Vanderbilt's Daughter,' 'Mama, Have You Heard the News?' and all the earlier known songs in which Casey Jones, K. C. Jones, David Jones and still other Joneses."

Perhaps the song itself did have some such intricate origin. The existence of a number of variants bears out the Sandburg theory in part. Nevertheless, the widow of the only original Casey Jones still lives and last October she attended ceremonies dedicating a monument to her husband. So did United States Senator Alben Barkley of Kentucky, who made a speech, of course.

It seems, from the testimony of railroad men whose memories of the dangerous age of railroading are still green, that there were four Jones brothers back in the "Nineties, all engineers and all working out of Jackson, Tennessee, a division point of the Illinois Central system. All the Jones boys were good engineers, but Casey was outstanding.

J. A. Phillips, now president of the Order of Railway Conductors, at that time a "boomer" brakeman on the I. C., thus describes Casey Jones:

"He stood six feet four inches tall, had black hair and blue eyes and weighed about 190 pounds. He was loved by all who worked with him, especially those who worked under him. He was always in good humor, but no one ever tried the second time to take advantage of him. The Negro firemen and boomer brakemen all loved him, for they never went hungry while working with him."

John Luther Jones was born in 1864 and went to work early as agent's helper at Cayce. He became an engineer at 30 and the name of his natal place was attached to him to distinguish him from his brothers, but the nickname was always spelled "Casey." Not that Casey needed artificial differentiation.

The switchmen knew by the engine's moans
That the man at the throttle was Casey Jones.

Even farmers and section hands knew when Casey was coming. Mr. Phillips describes him as a "high-roller" who was never satisfied when late.

"He was entirely without fear," wrote Mr. Phillips in a recent issue of The Railroad Conductor, "and really enjoyed high speed. Sometimes the other members of the crew objected to the high speed but Casey invariably replied with a jest and no reduction in speed would be noticed."

Fireman says, "Casey, you're running too fast,
You run that block board the last station you passed."
Casey says, "I believe we'll make it, though,
For she steams a lot better than I ever know."

 

Casey's reputation as a "high-roller" was built while he was hauling freight trains. In those days the I. C. handled many banana trains and refrigeration facilities were not what they are today. When the boomer brakeman caught a banana special with Casey Jones as engineer, his feelings were ambiguous--he felt himself of consequence, lucky to fill such an important job, but equally conscious of Casey's determination to "ride her till she leaves the rails." Later, Casey Jones became a passenger engineer, which is evidence that, in spite of his love for speed, he was a careful and conscientious driver. He was in passenger when he was killed in the wreck that made him famous.

Around the curve and down the dump,
Two locomotives was a-bound to bump

 

Here the ballad is grossly inaccurate. Casey Jones died in a rear-end collision. A freight train, pulling into a siding at Vaughan, Miss., was too slow--or perhaps Casey was rolling too fast. The records of the Illinois Central's investigation of the wreck in April, 1900, would tell which. Or maybe Sim Webb could tell. Sim was Casey's fireman on that historic trip. Sim jumped, at Casey's order, and lived to see the unveiling of that monument at Cayce, 38 years later.

Fireman jumps and says, "Good-bye,
Casey Jones, you're bound to die."

To quote J. A. Phillips again:

"Casey Jones, when faced with death, manifested his customary courage. He thought first of his passengers, next of his passengers, next of Sim Webb, his Sim Webb, his faithful Negro fireman, who he instructed to jump, and last--and too late--of himself. He died with his hand on the brake valve, loyal to his trust--a true man, a great engineer and a majestic hero."

Well, Casey Jones was all right,
He stuck to his duty day and night.

 

And then the legends began to grow. The first Casey Jones song was composed by a Negro shop worker at Jackson, one of the many humble subordinates whom Casey had befriended. He put his sorrow and admiration into a chant which served as the core about which accretions of fiction have grown. A few years later, during one of the James K. Vardaman campaigns in Mississippi, a hillbilly minstrel, the reek of whose sweat and eating tobacco carried almost as far as his tinny tenor and erratic guitar, spread the song, with his own improvisations into every voting precinct of the Magnolia State. A little later, as Carl Sandburg notes, the Leighton brothers and other vaudeville singers, revised, expanded and invented.

Mrs. Casey Jones was a-sittin' on the bed.
Telegram comes that Casey was dead.
She says, "Go to bed, children, and hush your crying,
Cause you got another papa on the Frisco line."

 

That was one of the inventions that must have been a cruel trial to the widow of John Luther Jones. But, heaven knows who wrote that verse and you can't sue a million singers for libel. After all, 38 years later, she saw a monument raised, commemorating the valor of her Casey Jones.

As a matter of fact, there are two monuments. An "X" marks the spot where Casey Jones died and a mighty American legend began to live, a shining cross of steel, polished by the wheels of railroad trains, the "X" formed by the rails of the I. C. main line and the siding at Vaughan, where the freight was just a little too slow, or Casey Jones was a little too fast.

Headaches and heartaches and all kinds of pain
They ain't apart from a railroad train.
Stories of brave men, noble and grand,
Belong in the life of a railroad man.