Lighter-

Probably the earliest full text of "Shenandoah," from The Riverside Magazine for Young People (Apr., 1868), p. 185

That certainly is a composite version, and it may well be what one shantyman cobbled together or the transcriptions of one observer merged. If the observer were a passenger, as evidently she was, all shanties might have seemed "alike" to her and who would care how they were re-assembled in her journal. Or maybe she did have a keen interest in figuring out what it was she was hearing. I'll look forward to seeing what else she came up with. One wonders who she was.

Charley Noble