The article (anonymous) called "On Shanties" in the periodical _Once a Week_ from 1868 mentions a capstan chanty by the title of "Lowlands." I believe the author was talking about this chanty. This is the first reference I have found.

Next, in Alden's article "Sailor Songs" in _Harper's Monthly_ of July 1882, "Lowlands Aray" (sic) is given with lyrics and tune. He mentions that "my dollar and a half a day" was the chorus in a variation.

At least a couple authors followed Alden in mentioning "Lowlands" shortly thereafter, but I believe they are derivative of Alden's work.

In 1888, L.A. Smith published a version of it in her chanties collection _Music of the Waters_. She has just copied Alden, from the looks of it. To go one further, she seems to run with Alden's statement about the "dollar" version and sketches out what she thinks it would be like. Hugill's later attestation of a "dollar" version (among others -- I am not going to sort through all the 20th century references now) contradict Smith's mock-up.

So, the chanty is probably at least as old as the 1860s.

In my opinion, the form and style of the song *scream* "chanty." This does not necessarily mean it could not have been a non-chanty, too, but...   I'm not aware of it ever being framed as a forebitter. Definitely a chanty.

It compares well with "Shenandoah," and I would tend to group them in a category. Alden, in fact, gives them right one after another, which may count for something. Both were most certainly capstan chanties. The rhythm is fine, because there was a great range of tempos/styles for capstan, depending on what you were hoisting and what part of the job you were engaged in. When the weight was very heavy, or if, say, the anchor was "stuck," the heaving might be very slow indeed. So slow, in fact, that it was not possible to maintain a steady beat. Like Shenandoah, Lowlands has what I call a "breathing rhythm." It's not that it has no tempo, but it's tempo might vary a bit and, more significantly, it has no set *meter*. Note the fact that every collector who notates these songs is forced to grapple with trying to set them in a meter.

Demonstrations or use of capstans have been so rare in recent decades, and when they are done there is a dimension of artificiality, so that we just don't see examples of that kind of heavy heaving.

As for the ultimate "origins" of "Lowlands": As I've said, I think it is -- as we know it -- a chanty. Which means it probably didn't exist before the 1830s or so. However, I would not be surprised at all to hear that the lyrical theme (the dead lover appearing in a dream) along with or separately from the "Lowlands" phrase, existed previously in other songs and that they provided the inspiration for the chanty. Hasn't someone quoted a Scots poem of this sort somewhere?

I'd consider that to be one of the contributing inspirations to 'Lowlands Away," like "Radcliffe Highway" inspires one version of "Blow the Man Down." However, as far as the origins go, the "ground zero," I'd start off looking in the American South circa 1840s-60s, FWIW.

I'm of the mind that, inspired by the Northern English/Scots tone of some of the common lyrics, many who have encountered the song in "folk music" contexts (Penguin books, etc) have jumped to the idea of the Scottish origins. I mean, how did the Corries pick it up and make it into such a lovely little hearthside chune? I think if they are looking for the lyrical theme independent of the song as we know it, they may well discover such an origin. But considering how chanties flexibly adopted many lyrics and themes, bending them to their structure and forming what are new songs, I think one has to give at least as much weight to other features that make up the identity of the song as it was documented in the 19th century.