Stan Hugill, who had taken stock as well of his shanty-collecting predecessors, too, had turned up no shipboard work-song accounts from the 18th century. However by the beginning of the 18th century, we might suppose sailing vessels with European crews were singing songs at the capstan, though this work was also done to fife-playing. The earliest references I have seen to that is the supposedly 1810s mention of the phrase "Heave, heave, my brave boys, and in sight," from the poem, "Sailors' Song." However, work at the spoke windlass to a song is referenced even earlier, 1803-ish, in which the European crews "fixing their bars therein, give a sudden jerk at the same instant; in which movement they are regulated by a sort of Song pronounced by one of the number."

Actually "singing" at halliards may have been less frequent. Elsewise it was just shouting, chanting, or otherwise too "primitive" to inspire mention. The first I am seeing may well be the "Cheerly" reference from Quebec, 1825. I also put stock in the claim from the UNITED SERVICES MAGAZINE, 1834, piece mentioned by Steve, which claims "Cheerly Men" was a hauling song in use for some time. Rather than assume that this means there was a repertoire of "halliard shanties" (plural(, I am inclined to believe that "Cheerly" was one of only very few chants that were standard material for this operation, e.g. aboard war ships of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars era. Let us not assume that "halyard shanties" as a class necessarily even existed yet. There may have only been "sing outs," for hand-over-hand hauling, or fife and drum playing for the stamp and go maneuver.

My contention is that "halyard chanties" constituted a major, new class of work-song. It was one that added tons of repertoire to shipboard worksongs AND, I think, probably inspired the paradigm by which one was expected to customarilly sing whilst doing any work aboard ship -- i.e. "chanties." I think this particular kind of shanty, which is clearly distinct from capstan songs and perhaps even from the "barely removed from a sing-out" style of "Cheerly Men," was introduced concurrently with the term "chanty" and, as I said, with this new notion of songs as an essential "tool" of sailing. With that paradigm in place, the repertoire of songs continued to grow until it flattened out and, finally, shanties were killed by steam.

So while they were preceded by the distinctly different heaving songs of capstan and windless, and, I believe presently, also distinct from the few standardized hauling chants, the halyard chanties (which I like to call "chanties, proper")came about later. The aim here is to discover when / how/ from where they came about. The sense it that the time period was early 19th century, so I am trying to steer this course from he early end of that.

So far, it is African Diaspora rowing songs that are shaping up as closest progenitors to "chanties, proper" in this time period and geographic setting. However, because of my prejudices, I may be turning up more links to those.

If anyone has any other references from this time period, 1800s-1820s, from a likely geographic area, that could suggest *immediate* progenitors to the new halliard chanties, I would love to see them. So far, with respect to pulling chanties from this period, I only see definite references to "Cheerly Men" and to the "Sally Brown, oh, ho." In my opinion at this point, those may not represent the classic halyard chanty forms that were to emerge. According to another interpretation, they may be among the very earliest, which were to develop as time went on. (As I stated earlier, I tend to think that at this point in history, the new halyard chanty form did not so much evolve as it was taken over wholesale from another work activity. And for that reason, I don't feel a need for continuity between "Cheerly" and the later songs.) Incidentally, "Cheerly" and "Sally Brown" -- considering that we've no basis to assume the Sally Brown of this reference was the latter-day chanty -- may be closely related. "Cheerly" (along with "Haul Her Away," "Nancy Fanana" etc) mentions nam