This is a halyard chanty. The first published description of this chanty is found in an account of an 1839 whaling voyage out of New London, Connecticut to the Pacific Ocean. there is some indication that the shanty is at least as old as the 1820s. This was the first song that our first band ever learned. The guitar players (Mel Dick and Jim Lindermer) with their plywood Harmony guitars didn't know any chords by name so I taught them the "spread-out chord" (Dm) and the "scrunchied-up chord" (Am). John Letscher played his father's tamburitzin bass and I played my uncle's bowl back mandolin. We learned it from the Burl Ives Song Book.