A comprehensive collection of traditional American maritime music compiled by Frank Shay (1888–1954), with illustrations by Edward A. Wilson and musical arrangements by Christopher Thomas. Originally published in 1924 under the title Iron Men and Wooden Ships, this 217-page collection features sea songs and work chanteys from the era of sailing ships. Later combined with A Sailor’s Treasury (1951) into An American Sailor's Treasury.

Shay heard his first shanty in 1915 while serving as a foremast hand aboard the tanker Standard. The ship caught fire and lost power off the Yucatan peninsula, and all work had to be done by hand. The crew struggled to handle the heavy towropes of a rescuing ship. “Work was going poorly until a shipmate sounded off with ‘Whiskey for my Johnny.’ The song brought immediate results and others were broken out, mostly in fragments. By the time the Standard made port I had a small collection of the old chanteys: subsequent voyages increased my repertory.”

Shay acknowledged many who assisted with the collection, and credited Joanna Carver Colcord‘s Songs of American Sailormen and Whall’s Sea Songs and Shanties in particular.

  1. Away, Rio
  2. Sally Brown
  3. Dead Horse
  4. Haul on the Bowline
  5. Johnny Boker
  6. Boney
  7. Haul Away, Joe
  8. Paddy Doyle
  9. Cheer’ly, Man
  10. Cheer’ly, O
  11. Black Ball Line
  12. Blow the Man Down, I
  13. Blow the Man Down, II
  14. Lowlands
  15. Lawlands o’ Holland
  16. Lowlands, II
  17. Lowlands, III
  18. A Long Time Ago
  19. Around Cape Horn
  20. Reuben Ranzo
  21. Hanging Johnny
  22. Whiskey for My Johnny
  23. Tommy’s Gone to Hilo
  24. Blow, Bullies, Blow
  25. Early in the Morning
  26. Stormalong
  27. Shenandoah
  28. Paddy Get Back
  29. Across the Western Ocean
  30. We’re All Bound to Go
  31. Paddy Works on the Railway
  32. Santa Anna
  33. Maid of Amsterdam (A-Roving)
  34. Banks of the Sacramento
  35. Cape Cod Girls
  36. Good-bye, Fare You Well
  37. Time to Leave Her
  38. One Day More
  39. High Barbaree
  40. ‘Way Down in Cuba
  41. Tom Bowline
  42. Ben Backstay
  43. Dreadnought
  44. Bigler
  45. Young Monroe at Gerry’s Rock
  46. I Come from Salem City
  47. A-Cruising We Will Go
  48. We Be Three Poor Marines
  49. Whale
  50. Captain Went Below
  51. Let Go the Peak Halyards
  52. Blow, Ye Winds
  53. Song of the Fishes
  54. Jack the Guinea Pig
  55. Spanish Ladies
  56. I Am a Brisk and Sprightly Lad
  57. Rolling Home
  58. Home, Dearie, Home
  59. Bell-Bottom Trousers
  60. Homeward Bound
  61. Yankee Man-of-War
  62. Ye Parliament of England
  63. Constitution and the Guerriere
  64. Shannon and the Chesapeake
  65. Charge the Can Cheerily
  66. Nancy Lee
  67. Norfolk Girls
  68. Flash Frigate
  69. Flying Cloud
  70. Ballad of Captain Kidd
  71. Female Smuggler
  72. Little Mohee
  73. Nantucket Skipper
  74. Brother Noah
  75. Girl I Left Behind Me
  76. Rollicking Bill the Sailor
  77. Fire Ship
  78. Christofo Columbo