Roll, 1850s, Roll!

I want to start re-viewing the sources attributing chanties to the 1850s. This means digging them out of places elsewhere on Mudcat and seeing what they say about the nature and context of maritime work-singing at those times. In addition to the MANY references in the "Sydney/SF" thread, I have some more bookmarked away!

The practice of chantying seems to explode in the 1850s. I will be interested to see the qualitative differences between the 40s and the 50s.

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In John D. Whidden's OCEAN LIFE IN THE OLD SAILING SHIP DAYS (copyright 1908), he quotes his friend Captain George Meacom, of Beverly Mass. Who wrote about the chanties he remembered from circa 1850s New Orleans. The testimony includes reference to 3 familiar songs, as pumping chanties: "Mobile Bay," "Fire Down Below," and "One More Day." It is impossible to say if these were 1850s songs though. Chantying is ascribed to more or less every shipboard task, indicating that, if the dating is accurate, chanty-singing was absolutely ubiquitous by the 1850s. It all falls within a rich passage that includes a description of cotton-stowing. Here we go:

I left the "Tirrell " in Boston, and having had enough of western ocean winter voyages, I signed the articles of the ship "Emperor," Captain Knott Pedrick, as third mate, bound to New Orleans. The "Emperor" was a ship of seven hundred tons burthen, having fine accommodations for cabin passengers. Sailing from Boston in ballast, we arrived safely, and loaded cotton for Havre, France.

New Orleans, at this time, was the great shipping port of the South for exporting cotton to Europe, although Mobile, Savannah and Charleston also shipped great quantities.
In the winter months, all along the levees at New Orleans lay tiers of shipping of all nationalities, loading cotton for the northern ports of the United States, as well as the various ports of Europe. The river front is shaped like a crescent, and from this fact New Orleans takes its name of the "Crescent City." For miles along the banks, or levees, extends the shipping, lying in tiers, loading cotton, staves, or tobacco, but principally cotton. The bales were rolled from the levee by the stevedores' gangs, generally roustabout darkies, up the staging, and tumbled on deck and down the hold, where they were received by gangs of cotton-screwers, there being as many gangs in the ship's hold as could work to advantage. The bales were placed in tiers, and when they would apparently hold no more, with the aid of planks and powerful cotton-screws, several bales would be driven in where it would appear to a novice impossible to put one.

Four men to a screw constituted a gang, and it was a point of honor to screw as many bales in a ship's hold as could possibly be crammed in, and in some cases even springing the decks upwards, such a power was given by the screw. All this work was accompanied by a song, often improvised and sung by the "chantie" man, the chorus being taken up by the rest of the gang. Each gang possessed a good "chantie" singer, with a fine voice. The chorus would come in with a vim, and every pound in the muscles of the gang would be thrown into the handle-bars of the cotton-screws, and a bale of cotton would be driven in where there appeared to be but a few inches of space.

The songs or "chanties" from hundreds of these gangs of cotton-screwers could be heard all along the river front, day after day, making the levees of New Orleans a lively spot. As the business of cotton-screwing was dull during the summer months, the majority of the gangs, all being good sailors, shipped on some vessel that was bound to some port in Europe to pass the heated term and escape the "yellow Jack," which was prevalent at that season. When they returned in the fall they could command high wages at cotton-screwing on shipboard. Some would go to northern ports, but generally the autumn found them all back, ready for their winter's work.

"Chantie" singing was not confined to the gangs of cotton screwers. In the days of the old sailing ships almost all the work on shipboard was accompanied by a song or "chantie." My old friend Captain George Meacom, of Beverly, nephew of my old commander, Captain Edward Meacom of the ship " Brutus," in an able article in the Boston Transcript, says in regard to the old time chantie songs:

"Fifty years ago, in my early sea life, when the American merchant marine was at its zenith, and the deep-water clipper sailing ship carried the broom at its masthead, no first-class well-appointed sailing ship would think of shipping its crew without having at least one good 'chantie man' among them. For with the oldstyle hand-brake windlass for getting the anchors, the heavy, single topsails and courses to handle, it was necessary, in order to secure the combined power of the men, that unison of effort should be made, especially while heaving up the anchor, mastheading the topsails, getting the tacks of the courses aboard and the sheets aft, or pumping ship, and this could better be well done by the assistance of a good 'chantie' song. With twenty-five or thirty men's efforts worked as a unit, this great, combined power would be sure to bring desired results in all heavy work. Noticing an article recently published, the writer said, 'I have passed many miserable hours pumping out leaks from wooden ships, but I was never so fortunate as to hear a pumping chantie.'

"In my early days of sea life ships were driven hard, and sail carried on the vessel to the utmost limit, that quick passages might be made, with the result that the vessel often being strained, — it not being uncommon for the whole body structure of the ship to quiver, — would leak considerably, and in order to keep her cargo from being damaged, it would be necessary to pump the water out of the vessel at stated periods, and at these times the pumping 'chantie' song came in place and served its purpose admirably. Among these songs were the following:

"'Mobile Bay

"' Were you ever down in Mobile Bay,
    Johnnie, come tell us and pump away. 

A-screwing cotton by the day,
    Johnnie, come tell us and pump away, 

Aye, aye, pump away, 

    Johnnie, come tell us and pump away,' etc.

"' Fire Down Below

"' Fire in the galley, fire in the house, 
   
Fire in the beef kid, scorching scouse; 
   
Fire, fire, fire down below: fetch a bucket of water. 
   
Fire down below,' etc.

"' One More Day For Johnnie

"' Only one more day for Johnnie,
    Only one more day: 

Oh, rock and roll me over,
    Only one more day,' etc.

" All of the named ' chanties' the writer of this once took pride in singing as a chantie man when before the mast as a sailor, and, in later years, after becoming an officer and captain, he found that the early acquisition was valuable as a critic of good 'chantie' singing, and although more than one half of a century has passed, yet the old 'chantie' song will start the blood tingling with the vim of the days of yore."