re: The James H. Williams article, it seems pretty significant, and I finally tracked it down for myself. I'll just add a couple notes to Lighter's exposition.

BLOW THE MAN DOWN is very similar to the one in Luce's NAVAL SONGS, 1883/1902. The editor does mention that work at the start of the article, saying that Williams' lyrics differ a lot. And they do. But not on this one song.

RIO GRANDE contains the perhaps interesting phrase, "bonny brown maid."

BOWLINE is mixed with "Haul Away Joe" in its chorus.

The FIRE DOWN BELOW here is the one Hugill calls version "B" -- that is, with a "weigh heigh ho" as opposed to "fetch a bucket of water." So far in this thread the only other *specific* appearance of that has been in Hatfield's Pensacola > Nice account. However, I have been using the FIRE DOWN BELOW tag when that title is mentioned alone, and it's possible the two chanties are getting confounded.

Meloney, who wrote in 1915 and took many of his lyrics from Masefield or Davis/Tozer, took his LONG TIME AGO, BOWLINE, GOODBYE FARE YOU WELL, WHISKEY JOHNNY, BONEY, and DRUNKEN SAILOR from Williams. This means that little if any of Meloney's article is original.

Williams' lyrics, however, do appear to be quite unique.