Thanks for the more details of Hutcheson! I think you did present that one, partially, before; I have notes from it in my draft writing about cotton screwing. I've been trying to pull together a piece that makes sense of all the data on the topic. Among the points that I hope to make is that the foremen of the chanty gangs (cotton screwing gangs) belong to the ports. The would scrape up the other four men to constitute the gang. That's opposed to 5 guys, which may have come off a ship, getting hired. This is significant because the foreman is the chantyman, and it suggests that he would be the one based in the local chanty singing practice, to which the migrant laborers would conform when hired.
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