Indeed, Charley! If you search this thread for "extra" you can see the development of that theme. In fact, it looks like that line first appeared in the Atlantic Monthly of 1858, and Smith has copied it here. This appears to be ground zero for that cliche, as I don't find it in any of the earlier sources.

***
LA Smith, cont.

The sentiment that steam has killed chanties -- an I idea which I believe "first" appeared in Alden (1882). Dunno who wrote for the "St. James's Gazette."

//
A writer in the St. James's Gazette of December 6th, 1884, says: "The beau-ideal chanty-man has been relegated to the past. His death-knell was the shriek of the steam-whistle, and the thump of the engines. When he flourished British ships were manned by British seamen, and carried much stronger crews in proportion to their tonnage than their successors. In those days gipsywinches, patent windlasses and capstans, had no existence, and the heaving and hauling had to be performed by manual strength and labour; and to make the work 'go' lighter, the chanty-man chanted his strange lays, while the tars with hearty good-will joined in the refrains and choruses. ...

... Old tars tell us that the chanties are not what they were before steam became so universal: one added, on telling me this, " I'll tell you what it is, Miss, steamboats have not only taken the wind out of our sails, but they have taken the puff out of us too, and them as remembers ship-life as it was, will scarcely recognize it now-a-days." This advocate of the old school was one of many "old salts" whose acquaintance I made, and who goodnaturedly sang for me several of their best-remembered chanties in a Sailors' Home in the North of England. I was very agreeably surprised at the effect of some of these chanty choruses; some of the men present had really good voices, and they sang with a life and spirit, and with as much rhythmical accuracy as though they were miles away on the briny ocean "heaving the windlass round, or hoisting the ponderous anchor."

Whilst on the subject of Sailors' Homes, I should like to digress for just one moment to express my cordial thanks to all those connected with the institutions that have so greatly helped me in the matter of collecting these chanties. To the Secretaries, Missionaries, and sailor inmates of many of the English Homes, I am indebted for much of the information I have obtained. ...
//

So she cites her human subjects: old gents at sailors' homes. We will see, I hope, just which chanties came from them and which were drawn from elsewhere.

Several types of chanties:

pg7
//
There are several kinds of chanty, though I believe, properly speaking, they should only be divided into two classes, namely, those sung at the capstan and those sung when hauling on a rope: but there are, over and above these, pumping songs—pumping being part of the daily morning duty of a well-disciplined merchant-vessel, just a few minutes' spell to keep the vessel free and the cargo unharmed by bilge-water; it is not a dismal sound at all, rather a lively one, on the contrary. There are also chanties used when holy-stoning the decks, and when stowing away the cargo; and indeed I think one may safely conclude that every one of Jack's duties, from Monday morning to Saturday night, is done to some sort of music, and according to the-Philadelphia catechism his labours do not end then, for in it we are taught that—

"Six days shalt thou labour and do all thou art able, And on the seventh, holy-stone the deck and clean-scrape the cable."

There is one job that sailors seldom fail to get, even when the weather is such as to prevent other work being done, and that is holy-stoning the decks. The men have to kneel down and push backwards and forwards a goodsized stone (usually sandstone), the planks being previously wetted and sprinkled with sand. From the fact of kneeling to it, this unpleasant task is known at sea under the title of " saying prayers."
//

Another cliche begins here. And this is the first mention of holystoning chanties.