1834        Bache, R. _View of the Valley of the Mississippi, or the Emigrants and Traveller’s Guide to the West._ Second edition. Philadelphia: H. S. Tanner.

Preface dated 1832. Chapter 27 on steamboats of the West (Ohio, Mississippi rivers).

Western style steamboats had boilers on the bow rather than in the center of the boat. The firemen (stokers) were full of noise, song, and whiskey.

pp347-8:
// [a passenger looking to pass the time] may even take a seat, as I have done a hundred times, on the boiler deck, and look down upon the movements of the firemen, who are generally coloured men, and listen to their rude, but frequently real wit, and their songs, when rousing up their fires, or bringing on board a fresh supply of wood, and especially when they are approaching or leaving ports. In these musical fetes, some one acts as the leader, himself oftentimes no mean maker of verses, and the rest join with all their might in the chorus, which generally constitutes every second line of the song. These chorusses are usually an unmeaning string of words, such as "Ohio, Ohio, Oh-i-o;" or "O hang, boys, hang;" or "O stormy, stormy," &c. When tired with the insipid gabble of the card-table in the cabin, or disinclined to converse with any one, I have spent hours in listening to the boat songs of these men.
//

This is the earliest reference I've seen for a "Stormy" song. Also the earliest for what seems to be "Hanging Johnny."