Continuing with some further thoughts on "Shenandoah". Frank Bullen, in his SONGS OF SEA LABOUR (1913) tells a story about listening to the work songs of the Black dock workers on the Demerara River off Georgetown. He says it was his first voyage, and he says that he "was before the mast in sailing ships from 1869 to 1880", so this event could perhaps be dated to sometime in 1869 (Introduction and pp. XII-XIII). One of the songs he heard was a version of "Shenandoah" and he gives this verse:

        [Chantyman] O Shenandoh my bully boy I long to hear you holler;
       [Chorus]Way ay ay ay ay
       [Chantyman] Shenando I lub ter bring er tot er rum en see ye make a swoller;
        [Chorus] Way ay ay ay Shenandoh.

Here is a link to a note in the "Shenandoah Origins" thread:

thread.cfm?threadid=4257#768205


To my knowledge, this is the only first-hand reference we have to any version of "Shenandoah" being used as a loading song. That seems a bit strange to me. However, what is even more strange is that I cannot find any references at all that would in any way document this song as a "river" song. The fact that it happens to mention "the wide/wild Missouri" *in some versions*, or that it designates "Shenandoah" as the Shenandoah River *in some* other versions does not necessarily mean that this is a river song. I have not been able to find any examples of it either on the rivers like the Mississippi or the Ohio or Missouri, or in relation to any of the Gulf ports like New Orleans or Mobile.

I know that Whall suggests that it "probably came from the American or Canadian voyageurs, who were great singers;...", (p. 1) but he gives not evidence for this. Is he the first person to make this connection? I am going to take the position that this is probably a "myth" that has come to be taken as "fact". It is not clear to me that this song had anything to do with fur traders or voyageurs or river traffic. It does seem more like a loading song, but with the exception of Bullen down in Guyana, we have no evidence for that either. Which means that for all we know it shows up primarily and perhaps even first of all as a sea-going chanty, not unlike "Shallow Brown". Surely if it was a "river" song, it would show up either on the riverboats or earlier on the keelboats and rafts, or on the river fronts. It just doesn't or at least hasn't so far.

What happens if we stop trying to make it a fur trapper (or cavalry song, which I think is particularly late and somewhat suspicious), and set aside all of the "Westerns" use of it in the popular imagination, and even bracket out the idea of it being a "river song", and look at it as a loading song/deep sea chanty. I think we might be able to see our earlier sources differently and might come to some different kinds of conclusions about this song.