Here are Alden's 1882 texts of "Shenandoah." This important article laments the imminent end of the sea shanty with the burgeoning use of steam power. The examples he gives are said to be from "thirty years ago."

"One of the best known of the windlass songs was the 'Shanandore' :

You Shanandore, I long to hear you.
Hurrah, you rollin' river !
You Shanandore, I long to hear you.
Ah, ha, you Shanandore.

"This is clearly of negro origin, for the 'Shanandore' is evidently the river Shenandoah. In course of time...some shanty-man...changed the second chorus. Thus the...song...assumed the following form, in which it was known to the last generation of sailors :

For seven years I courted Sally.
Hurrah, you rollin' river !
I courted Sally down in yon valley.
Ah, ha ! I'm bound away on the wild Missouri."

Note that Alden, at least, believed that the reference to the " wild Missouri" was a later addition.

Another early version, never before reprinted, comes from the article "Songs the Sailors Sing," by John R. Spears, in an undated issue of "The Sun," New York City, about 1900. It was sent to Robert W. Gordon in 1925. I have modernized the spellings :

"A popular shantie among negro crews (negroes being about the only real American sailors afloat [nowadays]) runs thus (omitting [the repetition of each solo within each stanza]):

Shenando' is my native valley,
Whoa there, rollin' river.
Shenando' I love your daughters.
Whoa there, bound away 'cross the wild Missouri.

For seven long years I courted Sally,
Whoa there,rollin' river.
Seven more and I couldn't get her.
Whoa there, bound away 'cross the wild Missouri.

Seven long years I was a Frisco trader,
Who there, rollin' river.
For seven more was a Texas Ranger,
Whoa there, bound away 'cross the wild Missouri."