Hogeye Navvy's lead singer in this song, in her introduction, gives a little more detail that might be of interest:

It seems there was a retired fisherman who made a practice of writing ballads, largely about wrecks and disasters, which he had printed and sold, and donated the proceeds to the survivors of the crews. Three Score and Ten was one of them.

In any case, DEFINITELY a lot older than 1953, for goodness sakes!

Dave Oesterreich