Years after, he began acting strangely, and was eventually found to be mentally ill. He died of senile dementia in the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum (now the Fremantle Arts Centre building) on 13 August 1900, and was buried in Fremantle Cemetery. His tombstone bears the word "rhyddid", meaning "freedom" in Welsh. While Moondyne Joe was bushranging in 1869, an Irish political prisoner named John Boyle O'Reilly was working in a convict road party near Bunbury. Although it is very unlikely that O'Reilly knew Moondyne Joe, he must have heard many stories of his exploits. In March 1869, O'Reilly escaped and was rescued by an American ship. After his arrival in the United States, he wrote a novel about convict life called "Moondyne: An Australian Tale", whose central character was called Moondyne Joe. The book is presented as fiction, and neither the character nor the plot bears much resemblance to the life of Joseph Johns. In 1913, O'Reilly's novel was made into a movie entitled "Moondyne". Directed by W. J. Lincoln, it starred George Bryant, Godfrey Cass and Roy Redgrave. Randolph Stow wrote a humorous children's book, "Midnite: The Story of a Wild Colonial Boy", in 1967 which told the story of an Australian bushranger based on the life and exploits of Moondyne Joe and a Queensland bushranger Captain Starlight. In 2002, Cygnet Books published "The Legend of Moondyne Joe", a work of juvenile fiction written by Mark Greenwood and illustrated by Frané Lessac. The book won the award in the Children's Books category at the 2002 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards. In 2012, Fremantle Press published a postmodern interpretation of Moondyne Joe's life, "The Ballad of Moondyne Joe", including poems and prose by John Kinsella and Niall Lucy. In 1982 a musical/play was written by Roy Abbott and Roger Montgomery of the Mucky Duck Bush Band and performed by Mucky Duck and friends at various venues. A railway siding on the Eastern Goldfields Railway in Johns' area of operations in the Avon Valley has been named "Moondyne", most likely after the man rather than the area. On the first Sunday of May, the township of Toodyay celebrates the life and times of Moondyne Joe by holding the Moondyne Festival. This festival takes place in the main street with street theatre, market stalls, demonstrations and the entire town is generally transported back to earlier years.