"More and more old newspapers are becoming available on-line which does make this type of newspaper research potentially more fruitful."

You're right about that, Charlie. In this age, one can never say that the research is over! Out of curiosity more than a really serious attempt, I did a quick Google Book search yesterday afternoon on "Whiskey Johnny" thinking this would be a good candidate, like "Sally Brown", for some early stuff, but was really disappointed in the results. I turned up quite a bit of later stuff and a lot of literary stuff with Harte and O'Neill, but no early stuff.

Lighter, I was wondering about the Hood poem and how much it might have muddied the water on "Sally Brown" throughout the 19th century. But from the description give on Mr. Wallack's performance, it sure sounds like a bona fide chanty {not a new category!}. I did find newspaper references to the Hood poem being performed in Australia after the turn of the 20th century.

So what is the thinking about which way the influence may have gone with regard to "Sally Brown" the bona fide chanty, and Hood's "Faithless Sally Brown"? Or was it possibly back and forth? Could Hood have been inspired by an early form of the chanty and then once his poem became popular, it reacted back on the chanty? But I don't see any real evidence of the poem in the chanty versions we have today. I couldn't find an "earliest" publication date for Hood's poem.