Voyage of the Buffalo, The

DESCRIPTION: "Come all you jolly seamen bold... Concerning of a voyage to New Zealand we did go, For to cut some lofty spars to load the Buffalo." After taking a load of emigrants from Portsmouth to Australia, they go logging in New Zealand
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1836? (citation in the diary of W. H. Cheeseman, according to Bailey/Roth-ShantiesByTheWay-NZ)
KEYWORDS: ship emigration logger New Zealand
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Bailey/Roth-ShantiesByTheWay-NZ, pp. 18-19, "The Voyage of the Buffalo" (1 text)
Garland-FacesInTheFirelight-NZ, pp. 31-32, 182, "(The Voyage of the Buffalo)" (2 texts, although they seem mostly to be rearrangements of each other)
Tod-WhalingInSouthernWaters, p. 128, "The Voyage of the Buffalo" (1 text)
NOTES [149 words]: According to IC. W. N. Ingram, New Zealand Shipwrecks: 1795-1970 (fourth edition of a book that eventually went through about eight, first published in 1936 and covering wrecks to the early 1930s and eventually extended almost to the end of the twentieth century), A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1972 (I use the 1974 printing), p. 166, HMS Buffalo was wrecked on July 28, 1840 at Mercury Bay, New Zealand, with two men drowned. If the 1836 attribution of this song is correct, the song cannot be about that voyage, but Ingram, p. 16, adds that the Buffalo "had made previous voyages to Australia and New Zealand in 1833-1834 and 1836, carrying convicts to Australia and loading kaori spars in New Zealand," so presumably that is the ship meant; the Buffalo was a 539 ton ship, built at Calcutta in 1813, which at the time of her building was designated a "Timber Ship on Particular Service." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: BaRo018

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography