1850s

Summary:

The Gold Rushes have happened. Before these, as far as shipboard-related items are concerned, we've seen no more than maybe 10 songs that we might know today. The rest is in the order of "heave ho" and lost ditties. Chanties have indeed arrived, but we don't get the sense there was necessarily much repertoire in the deepwater trade. It was the cotton-stowers who had "endless" songs--"chants." However, the Gold Rush(s) is a time when we expect to see lots of new repertoire.--right?

Non-shipboard songs in this decade include:

Mississippi and Alabama firemen's songs, Patting juba and other plantation songs in Louisiana and Maryland, and allusions to more rowing and corn-shucking in Georgia. They suggest the origins of such themes as "Hilo," "Hog-eye," and "Haul Away Joe."

"Cheer'ly" and yo heave hos are still being noted.

"Stormy" has emerged as a major theme, and its use at halyards on what must have been a British ship to Melbourne, in 1852, is notable.

Many of the references to actual chanties are unsatisfying as they are written at a much later time from when they were supposed to have existed. However the first focused expositions on chanties (but still not calling them such) come out. The two articles really bring home the "recently" acquired importance of chanties. One makes a very dramatic comparison between chanties and African songs. The other would become one of the text sources to be mined by later authors.

For interest's sake, if one is to note the known shipboard chanties that are mentioned *only* in *contemporary* sources up to this point (i.e. not looking back from much later dates), we have:

up through 1829

"yo, heave ho"
CHEERLY
'Sally Brown, oh, ho"

up through 1839

"Pull away now, my Nancy, O!"
"Pull away, my hearty boys—pull away so cheerily,"
"Then pull away strongly, boys, and sing Sally-ho!"
"Oh! Sally Brown"
"Heave, to the girls!"
"Nancy oh!"
"Jack Cross-tree"
"Heave round hearty!"
"Captain gone ashore!"
"Time for us to go!"
ROUND THE CORNER
"Hurrah! hurrah! my hearty bullies!"

Up through 1849

HIGHLAND LADDIE
DRUNKEN SAILOR
"Nancy Fanana, she married a barber/Heave her away, and heave her away"
"Then walk him up so lively/ Ho, O, heave O!"
GROG TIME

Up through 1859/start of Civil War

STORMY
HUNDRED YEARS
BOWLINE
ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN
MONEY DOWN
"Highland day and off she goes"
"Heigho, heave and go/Heigho, heave and go''
"Hurrah! we're homeward bound"

Strictly speaking, then, the evidence for the times really doesn't show us too many familiar chanties even before the Civil War. Of course that doesn't mean they weren't there -- but a lot of the familiar stuff is appearing on "shore". And remember, the songs have yet to be called "chanties" by observers.

Sources:

c.1850s

- "Johnnie, come tell us and pump away" [MOBILE BAY] and "Fire, fire, fire down below/fetch a bucket of water/Fire down below" [FIRE FIRE] and "Only one more day" [ONE MORE DAY] Ship BRUTUS (American)/pumping (Whidden 1908)

- the wildest and most striking negro song we think we ever listened to…one dusky fellow, twirling his wool hat above his head, took the lead in singing, improvising as he sang, all except the chorus, in which the whole crew joined with enthusiasm Steamboat, Alabama river/boatmen (Hundley 1860)

- "Haul away the bowline/ Way haul away, Haul away, Joe!" [HAUL AWAY JOE] clipper ship (ideal) / sheets (Clark 1912)

- "Ranzo, boys, O Ranzo" [REUBEN RANZO] clipper ship (ideal) / halyards (Clark 1912)

- "Way, yay, way, yay, yar/ Oh, run with the bullgine, run" [RUN LET THE BULGINE RUN] clipper ship (ideal) / pumps (Clark 1912)

c.1851>

- "Oh fare you well, my own Mary Anne" Ship > Sydney w/ gold seekers/pumping (Craig 1903)

- "When first we went a-waggoning" Ship > Sydney w/ gold seekers/pumping (Craig 1903)

1851, July

- "Fire on the bow/Fire down below!" [FIRE FIRE] Mississippi steamboat/Black firemen ("Notes and Queries" 1851)

1851, Sept.

- "old stormy long" [STORMY], packet barque, Baltimore > Liberia/no particular work mentioned (Fuller 1851)

1852, Jan.

- that sturdy fellow there who plies his pickaxe to the tune of "Oh, Sally Brown!", central California during the Gold Rush/sailors mining (Marryat 1852)

c.1852

- the ruder throats of a party of our own Anglo-Saxon seamen, who, with "Yo, heave ho!'' or some such capstan or windlass chorus, outside Melbourne, Australian Gold Rush/musical activities of diggers (Sherer 1853)

1852, late

- "cheerymen" [CHEERLY] and "Hurra, and storm along/ Storm along, my Stormy" [STORMY] Packet ship, Gravesend > Melbourne/topsail halyards (Tait 1853)

c.1853 [or earlier]
- "Hog Eye!/Old Hog Eye/And Hosey too!" [HOG EYE] and "Hop Jim along/Walk Jim along/Talk Jim along" Louisiana/patting juba (Northup 1855)

1853
- "Oahoiohieu" [SAILOR FIREMAN] and "Oh, John, come down in de holler/Ime gwine away to-morrow" [JOHNNY COME DOWN HILO] Red River, LA/ steamboat hands (Olmsted 1856)

1854, early
- "Haul the bowline, the Black Star bowline, haul the bowline, the bowline HAUL!" [BOWLINE] Packet ship PLYMOUTH ROCK, Boston > Melbourne /sheet-style chanty adapted as entertainment (Note: text contains tunes to three other possible shanties) (Peck 1854)

1854, Nov.
- the "yo heave-ho!" of the men at the capstan who are warping her into dock, London/ general reference (Leisure Hour 1854)

1855, Jan.
- "Whaw, my kingdom, fire away" [MARINGO] Imagined Georgia/Blacks rowing (PUTNAM'S 1855)
- "Hey, come a rollln' down/Good morning ladies all" [GOOD MORNING LADIES] Imagined Georgia/corn-shucking (PUTNAM'S 1855)

1855, Aug.
- "Storm along, Stormy" [STORMY] general reference in fiction to how a crew might sing that song (Farnsworth 1855)

1856

- [Titles:] "Santy Anna," [SANTIANA] "Bully in the Alley," [BULLY IN ALLEY] "Miranda Lee," "Storm Along, John," [STORMALONG JOHN] Clipper ship WIZARD, NY > Frisco/Downton pump, with bell ropes (Mulford 1889)

- "Hi yi, yi, yi, Mister Storm roll on, Storm Along, Storm Along,"[MR. STORMALONG] and "All on the Plains of Mexico" [SANTIANA] and "Aha, we're bound away, on the wild Missouri" [SHENANDOAH] Packet ship, Liverpool > NY (Fisher 1981)

1857

- "Hilo! Hilo!/ Hilo! Hilo!" [HILO?] Maryland/slave song (general reference) (Long 1857).

1857?

- "Row, bullies, row!/Row, my bullies, row!" [BLOW BOYS BLOW?] Rowboat to frigate, New York (KNICKERBOCKER, 1857)

1857, November

- "Oh, poor Paddy works on the railway" [PADDY ON THE RAILWAY] Ship RED JACKET, Liverpool/brake windlass (Chatterton 2009)

- "Whiskey for my Johnny/Whiskey, Johnny" [WHISKEY JOHNNY] Ship RED JACKET, Liverpool/topsail halyards (Chatterton 2009)

c.1857-58

- "Cheer'ly Man" [CHEERLY] and "Come along, get along, Stormy Along John" [STORMY ALONG] John Short of Watchet

1858

- "Hilo, boys, hilo! Hilo, boys, hilo!" [HILO BOYS] Barque TYRER, Casilda, Cuba > London / topsail halyards (Bloomfield 1896)

1858, July

- "Oh, the bowline, bowline, HAUL!" [BOWLINE] Ship, trans-Atlantic/braces (THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY 1858)

- "Pay me the money down!/Pay me the money down!" [MONEY DOWN] and "And the young gals goes a weepin'" [ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN] and "O long storm, storm along stormy" [STORMY] Ship, trans-Atlantic/brake pump (The Atlantic Monthly 1858)

- "Highland day and off she goes/Highland day and off she goes." [HILONDAY?] Ship, unknown/topsail halyards (Atlantic Monthly 1858)

1858, Dec.

- "Heigho, heave and go/Heigho, heave and go'' and "Hurrah, storm along!/Storm along my stormies"[STORMY] and "Hurrah! we're homeward bou-ou-ound!/Hurrah! we're homeward bound" [OUTWARD AND HOMEWARD BOUND] Brake windlass (Allen 1858)

- "Oh haulee, heigho, cheeryman!" [CHEERLY] topsail halyards (Allen 1858)

- "Heigh Jim along, Jim along Josey, Heigh Jim along, Jim along Jo!" Blacks rowing (Allen 1858)

c.1858-1860

- "Whiskey for Johnny!" Packet ship MARY BRADFORD, London > NY/ to "pull round the yards" (Real Experiences 187?)

1859, Feb

- the "A-a-b'la A-a-b'la!" "E-e-cha! E-e-cha!" of the caldron-men crying to the stokers, and the high, monotonous chant of the gangs filling the wagons or the trough, a short, improvisated stave, and then the chorus;—not a tune, like the song of sailors at the tackles and falls but a barbaric, tuneless intonation, Cuba, sugar plantation/non-maritime work-singing of slaves (Dana 1859)

c.1859-60

- "O, Riley, O" [OH RILEY] and "Whiskey for my Johnny" [WHISKEY JOHNNY] and "Storm along, my Rosa"[STORMY] Barque GUIDE Boston > Zanzibar/ brake windlass (Clark 1867)

c.1860-61

- "Rolling River" [SHENANDOAH] and "Cheerily she goes" and "Oh, Riley, Oh" [OH RILEY] and "Carry me Long" [WALK HIM ALONG] Clipper ship, Bombay > NY/raising anchor (Clark 1867)