Sea Shanties on the Puget Sound

I’ve mentioned before that I was once a sailor, and that’s where this whole thing begins. On a spring day in Washington DC, along the levy of the Anacostia river, I participated in my first PT session- you know, physical training. The navy does it three times a week. Usually some stretching, some warm ups, and then you go for a run. And when you run in formation, there will usually be cadences involved. It helps you keep time, helps keep everyone on the same page.

We sang a lot of different cadences. Some for running, some for marching. Steamroller baby, captain Jack, tiny bubbles. PT grandma.. But My favorite of all these cadences was always Drunken Sailor. You might be familiar with it. You might have even heard it recently, because the drunken sailor marching cadence we sang in the navy has roots that go clear back to the age of sail- it started life as a sea shanty. 

And since we all know Sea Shanties are SO HOT right now, I really wanted to talk about them! 

My first question was, were sea shanties ever a thing here, in Bremerton? My initial thought was no, probably not. Sea shanties are from sailing ships and the work they required- like turning the capstain, heaving and hauling on lines, loading supplies aboard. Bremerton comes into existence just before the turn of 1900, so it’s squarely in the age of steam, not sail. According to Wikipedia, the age of sail ended in the 1860’s, which is thirty years before Bremerton would become a twinkle in William Bremer’s eye. And Bremerton has always been a navy base. The navy officially transitioned from sail to steam in the 1890’s with the battleships Texas and Maine. We’re getting much closer to our founding date. Hmm.

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We had the mosquito fleet of ferry boats that ran all over the puget sound! But, they were all steamboats, so we have to look further back. That was when I came across a drawing labeled “Port Madison”. It looks like an ink sketch of a shoreline- there’s a steamboat on the water in the foreground, with a small town behind it. Off to the right was what intrigued me- It appeared to be a section of docks, with a couple of masted ships! Okay, now where in the world was “Port Madison”?!

I got my hands on the book “Port Madison, Washington Territory” by Fredi Perry. Inside is an 1856 land survey of port madison. I recognized the shape and held it up next to a google map to confirm- Port Madison is the North end of Bainbridge Island! The story goes that in april of 1853, the first steam powered sawmill in the puget sound started in Apple tree cove, which would be modern Kingston. There are differing accounts as to who moved the mill and why, but either way, by 1855 the mill had been moved to port madison. It particularly mentions that a group of men came up to Apple tree cove on the brig “John Davis”, and I found some corresponding shipping records that the John Davis returned to the Port of San Francisco on July 30, 1853 with a load of lumber and three passengers. It returned to san francisco again from the puget sound with a loads of lumber, piles and shingles on october 5th. There is also mention of the brig “Merchantmen” leaving for the puget sound march 26th 1856. Also, the brig “Consort” made the trip a couple of times.

So, what kind of ship is a brig, you might ask? A brig is a two masted sailing ship! It was a versatile style of ship. It was used by merchants and the military and even whalers. When you think of a sailing ship with it’s glorious sails billowing in the wind, there’s a good chance you’re picturing a brig! Where there are sails, there are Shanties!

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If the ships are making it to the north end of Bainbridge it’s possible that they sailed down the agate passage, or even around and down into the port washington narrows. And that’s good enough for me! Were there Shanties sung on the puget sound? I think that answer is a resounding yes!

My next question is what shanties did they sing but that’s a much more difficult question to answer. Shanties could be carried all over the world by different sailors as they signed on to work different vessels and traveled the world. Some make geographic references but obviously none to Bremerton, of all places. Some specifically American shanties are “Blow, Boys Blow!” from the atlantic coast. Reuben Ranzo is about a sailor from Boston. We also find that the lyrics to shanties change geographically, like in “Homeward Bound” which could be sung with a reference to “ ‘Frisco town”. I think there’s a good chance that a shanty like Homeward bound would have been heard on the puget sound, as one of the aforementioned Brigs started heading home to San Francisco from Port Madison with a load of timber.