Joe posted the original version of this poem above. I've now had some more time to process it for singing. I'm now using "Cheerokee Shuffle" as the tune rather than Bob Zentz' "The Portsmouth Road", added a refrain line and dropped one verse, and changed some of the wording. Here's the result (copy and paste into WORD/TIMES/12 to line up chords):

HASTINGS MILL

(Original words by Cicely Fox Smith, 1919, in SAILOR TOWN, pp. 56-57
Adapted for singing by Charles Ipcar © 2005
Tune: traditional "Cherokee Shuffle")

C--------------------------------Am----C---------------Am
As I went down by Hastings Mill, I lingered in my going,
----F------------------C---------Am--------C------------------Am
To sniff the smell of piled-up deals and feel the salt wind blowing,
------C------G----------C
And feel the salt wind blowing;
----F----------------C-------------------------F-----------------C
To hear the cables fret and creak, and the rigging stir and sigh –
F---------------------Am------------C--------------------Am
"Shipmate, oh, my shipmate!" as in those days gone by,
----C--------G----------C
As in those days gone by.

As I went down by Hastings Mill, I saw a ship there lying,
All about her masts and yards the sunset clouds a-flying,
The sunset clouds a-flying;
And I mistook her for the ghost of one I used to know –
"Shipmate, oh, my shipmate!" so many years ago,
So many years ago.

As I went down by Hastings Mill, I heard a fella singing,
While chipping off the deep-sea rust, above the tide a-swinging,
Above the tide a-swinging;
And well I knew the queer old tune and well the song he sung –
"Shipmate, oh, my shipmate!" as when the world was young,
As when the world was young.

And past the rowdy Union Wharf, and by the still tide sleeping,
To a randy dandy deep-sea tune my heart in time was keeping,
My heart in time was keeping;
To the thin far sound all in the dusk of an anchor watch a-hauling –
"Shipmate, oh, my shipmate!" with evening shadows falling,
With evening shadows falling!

(Instrumental break for two lines)
And the voice of one I knew so well, across the harbour calling –
"Shipmate, oh, my shipmate!" with evening shadows falling,
With evening shadows falling!


Notes:

The wood-hulled, steam-powered tug Haro was built in Vancouver for B.C. Mills (Hastings Mill) for its harbor service.

The Hastings Shingle & Manufacturing Company: After a bit of re-organization, the Woods-Spicer Company was bought out for $1,200 by the Hastings Shingle & Manufacturing Company in 1906. Hastings was owned by the McNair brothers.

In 1896 Julius M. Fromme had been appointed supervisor of Hastings' operations on the woods. The Hastings upper mill off Dempsey Road was built in 1904 and closed in 1910.

Thomas Allen interviewed the McNairs to buy the Hastings Mill and paid $2,000 in down payment to $20,000. He quickly turned his eyes to real estate so he sold his interests to his partner J.M. Fromme who formed the Lynn Valley Lumber Company.

Location: on the South Shore of Burrard Inlet, near Powell Street.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble