1840s

Summary:

African-American songs of many types. Just one rowing song, in Georgia (perhaps this practice was becoming obsolete?). However, fireman songs come in as a possible influence. Corn-sucking songs in South Carolina, with proto-chanty themes. Perhaps most profound are the cotton-stowing references at Mobile and New Orleans, especially because they directly share shipboard themes as the prior "Highland Laddie" and coming "Stormy." This work is most significant as a place where two different working cultures met: Black shoreside work gangs, with their concept of the dedicated chanty-man, and Euro/American sailors, who moved between professions.

"Grog Time" appears again as a stevedore's song -- and appears as one of the first clear examples of a modern halyard chanty when used on a run by a brig out of New York.

The Black songs seem to have fed the minstrel genre to some degree. Songs connected to or resembling "Tally," "Blow Boys Blow," "Stormy," and "Fire Down Below" are all ones for which we could make a good case had inspired, rather than were inspired by, their minstrel cognates.

While the "Blow Boys Blow" lyrics have a downhome Southern touch about them, we also see the possibility that "Row, Billy, Row" was a transformation of an old style heaving song.

Speaking of which, the old yo-ho's and "cheerl'y" are still plentiful. Among them, songs that stand out as "modern" chanties are "Hundred Years Ago," "Stormy," "Across the Briny Ocean." Their symmetrical (or binary, balanced) form certainly is well suited to the brake windlass, and, when specified, they seem most applied to that function. I am not seeing any other (except Grog Time) explicitly named as a halyard song.

The phrase "roll and go" appears for the first time, twice in this decade.

*I am leaving out the last (Clark) reference; I don't trust it as a reliable source for this period.

Sources:

c.1840s

- "grog time o' day." [GROG TIME] Clipper-brig CURLEW, New York >Hamburg/ halyards (Rice 1850)

- "yeo, heave ho", Clipper-brig CURLEW, New York>Hamburg, [spoke?] windlass

- "Oh-ye-hoy" brigantine, M--, "the Downs" [English Channel]/ windlass (Chapman 1876) [1840]

- "Cheerily, men!" [CHEERLY], brigantine, M--, "the Downs" [English Channel]/catting anchor (Chapman 1876) [1840]

- all hands clapped on to the weather main topsail brace, and hauled on it with a will, and with a "Yo— he—hoy!" and clap on a rope and sing out, "Oh—heave—hoy !" brigantine, M--, Melbourne/braces (Chapman 1876) [1840]

1840, Feb.

- The usual cry is "Ho! Ho! Hoi!" or "Ho! Ho! Heavo!" Whaler, New London > Pacific/hauling (Olmsted 1841).

- "Ho! Ho! and up she rises/Ear-ly in the morn-ing" [DRUNKEN SAILOR] and "Nancy Fanana, she married a barber/Heave her away, and heave her away [HAUL 'ER AWAY]
halyard

- "O! hurrah my hearties O!" short haul to extract whale tooth

1841

- "Grog time o' day/Oh, hoist away" [GROG TIME] New Orleans/stevedores loading a steamboat (THE NEGRO SINGER'S OWN BOOK ca1843-45; THE ART OF BALLET 1915)

1842, February

- casting huge sticks of wood into the mouths of the row of yawning furnaces beneath the serried boilers,accompanying their labor by a loud and not unmusical song, steamboat, Ohio River/Black fireman (THE BALTIMORE PHOENIX AND BUDGET 1842)

1842, April

- "Cheerily, oh cheerily," [CHEERLY] Ship HUNTRESS, New York > China/ hoisting guns from hold (Lowrie 1849)

1842, Sept.

- "O ee roll & go/O ho roll & go" [SALLY BROWN?] whaleship TASKAR/song in diary (Creighton 1995)

1842, October

- "Heave him up! O he yo!" Canary Islands/spoke windlass (Browne 1846).

c. 1843[or earlier]

- "A darkey band and a darkey crew, Tally ya ha higho!" [TALLY] rowing song, minstrel collection (Negro Singer's 184x)

- "Oh, ah, oh, ah/Dah, da, tiddle dum de da," lyrics evoke "Blow Boy, Blow," minstrel collection (Negro Singer's 184x)

1843, March

- "Oh hollow!/Oh hollow!" [HILO?] and "Jenny gone away," [TOMMY'S GONE?] and "Dan, dan, who's the dandy?" [the monkey-song] and "John John Crow/ John John Crow" [JOHN CROW] South Carolina/corn-shucking (Duyckinck, 1866)

1843-1846

- the firemen struck up one of those singularly wild and impressive glees which negroes alone can sing effectively, Steamboat, Mississippi valley (Illinois)/Black firemen (Regan 1859)

1844

- "Oh, the captain's gone ashore/Hie bonnie laddie, and we'll all go ashore" [GROG TIME?] Mobile Bay/cotton-stowing (Hill 1893).

- "Cheerily men, ho!" [CHEERLY] Port Adelaide/remembering a ship's song (Lloyd 1846)

1844, August

- "Round the corner, Sally!" [ROUND THE CORNER] Society Islands/local imitation of sailor's song (Lucett)

1844-45

- The crew was made up of the hardest kind of men; they were called "hoosiers,"
working in New Orleans or Mobile during the winter at stowing ships with cotton, and in the summer sailing in the packet ships. They were all good chantey men; that is, they could all sing at their…we could reef and hoist all three topsails at once, with a different song for each one, Packet ship TORONTO, NY > London/re: cotton-stowing (Low 1906)

- "Roll and go for that white pitcher, roll and go," London/unloading cargo w/ capstan

1845, Feb.

"Ho, O, heave O" heaving anchor (American Journal of Music and Musical Visitor 1845)

- "Row, Billy, row," [BLOW BOYS BLOW?] American sailor returned from Mediterranean/rowing

1845, Sept.

- "Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie" [HIGHLAND] and "Fire, maringo, fire away" [MARINGO] Ship CHARLES CAROL, New Orleans/cotton-stowing (Erskine 1896)

1845, Dec.

- rowed by six negroes, who were singing loudly, and keeping time to the stroke of their oars, Alatamaha river, GA/Black rowing (Lyell 1849)

c.1845-1851

- "Carry him along, boys, carry him along/ Carry him to the burying-ground" [WALK HIM ALONG] and "Hurrah, see—man—do/Oh, Captain, pay me dollar" and "Fire, maringo, fire away" [MARINGO] and "Bonnie laddie, highland laddie" [HIGHLAND] many of the screw-gangs have an endless collection of songs, Mobile Bay/cotton-stowing (Nordhoff 1855)

- "Tally hi o you know" [TALLY] Whaleship/weighing anchor (Brewster & Druett 1992)

c.1846-1852

- "Oh sailors where are you bound to/Across the briny ocean" [ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN] Packet ship, Liverpool > Philadelphia/ pump windlass (Nordhoff 1855)

1848

- "O! bullies, O!/A hundred years ago!" [HUNDRED YEARS] and "storm along, stormy!" [STORMY] Hawai'i/non-working, whaling territory (Perkins 1854)

- "Round the corn, Sally" [ROUND THE CORNER] and "Clear the way when Sambo come" corn-shucking, general (AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, July 1848)

- "Storm along Stormy" [STORMY] minstrel song collection (White 1854)

- "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!/Fire down below" [SAILOR FIREMAN] minstrel song collection (White 1854)

- "Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire/Den tote dat bucket ob water, [boys?]/Dar's fire down below" [FIRE FIRE] minstrel song collection (White 1854)

[1848-1855: California Gold Rush]

1849, March

- "O, yes, O!/ A hundred years ago" [HUNDRED YEARS] Steamer OREGON, Panama > San Francisco/ at the capstan and windlass (Thurston 1851)

1849 (ideal look back)

- "We'll kill Paddy Doyle for his boots" [PADDY DOYLE] clipper ship, New York harbor (ideal) / walking away with slack (?) of halyards (Clark 1912)

- "Whiskey, Johnny/Whiskey for my Johnny" [WHISKEY JOHNNY] clipper ship, New York harbor (ideal) / topsail halyards (Clark 1912)

- "Lowlands, lowlands, hurra, my boys/My dollar and a half a day" [LOWLANDS AWAY] clipper ship, New York harbor (ideal) / anchor capstan (Clark 1912)

- "Hah, hah, rolling John," clipper ship, New York harbor (ideal) / catting anchor (Clark 1912)

- "Oh, poor Paddy works on the railway" [PADDY ON THE RAILWAY] clipper ship, New York harbor (ideal) / brake windlass (Clark 1912)