Buy the CD Too Far From the Shore, The Boarding Party. It's a great one, as are all of their CDs!
^^
Ten Stone

I never seen the like since I've been born,
Way hey and a hilo--
Jenny with a jib-boom hoein' up corn.
Way hey roll and go.

It's ten stone (ten stone)
Ten stone--the wind am over
Jenny get along, Jenny blow the horn
As we go marchin' over

The possum jump and the panther roar,
Been dancin' this dolly since half past four.

If the sun don't shine then the hens won't lay,
And if you don't work then the boss won't pay.

The gals they say, "you're a bunch of liars,"
"You're bound to hell for to feed them fires."

And if you drown when you are young,
It's better to drown than to wait to be hung.

We dig your ditch with a silver spade,
Well there ain't no diggin' in a watery grave

Bullen heard this song in 1869, sung by Negro stevedores loading cargo in the Demerara River near Georgetown, Guyana, on the northern coast of South America. It was used only for cargo loading and was not in common use aboard ships.

An audience member once told members of The Boarding Party he'd heard Ten Stone being sung by Black field hands in Eleuthera, Bahamas, to accompany 'pickle picking'.

From 'Songs of Sea Labour' by F. T. Bullen and W. F. Arnold, published by The Orpheus Music Publishing Company (London) in 1914. Found by Jonathan Eberhard and sung by him on The Boarding Party's last CD Too Far From the Shore (Folk-Legacy CD-131)

Bullen only included the opening verse and refrain lines as other verses were improvised. Jonathan borrowed from other Negro shanties in Hugill's 'Shanties from the Seven Seas'.

(Copied and paraphrased from the above CD's liner notes)l