Gibb, your reference to "1855 Marryat, "Frank". _Mountains and Molehills_" may be the first real evidence we have of an actual chanty being sung in connection to the Gold Rush! I'm going to copy this note over to the "SF to Sydney" thread. If the sailors were singing "Sally Brown" while they were mining for gold, then they may well have been singing it on the outward bound ships from San Francisco to Sydney.