Harry Bluff

DESCRIPTION: Harry Bluff joins the navy as a boy with "the soul of a man." He grows to manhood. In battle, the flag "he nail'd to the mast, And he died like a true Yankee/British sailor."
AUTHOR: Isaac Pocock (source: Frank-JollySailorsBold)
EARLIEST DATE: 1835 (_The Universal Songster and Museum of Mirth_) for the Yankee sailor version; before 1830 (Broadside Bodleian Bod5965 Johnson Ballads 21) for the British sailor version
KEYWORDS: virtue battle navy war death sea ship patriotic sailor
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Frank-JollySailorsBold 189, "True Yankee Sailor, The (True British Sailor)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Jackson-EarlySongsOfUncleSam, pp. 98-99, "Harry Bluff" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: (no author listed), _Grigg's Southern and Western Songster_ (Philadelphia: Grigg & Elliot, 1839 (available on Google Books)), p. 236, "The True Yankee Sailor" ("When a boy, Harry Bluff left his friends and his home") (1 text)
(no author listed), _The Universal Songster and Museum of Mirth_ (Boston: Charles Gaylord, 1835 (available on Google Books)), pp. 143-144, "Harry Bluff" ("When a boy, Harry Bluff left his friends and his home") (1 text)
(no author listed), _The Quaver_ (London: Charles Jones, 1844 (available on Google Books)), p. 46, "Harry Bluff" ("When a boy, Harry Bluff left his friends and his home") (1 text)
William Shannon, _The Dominion Orange Harmonist: Orange Songs and Poems_ (Toronto: Maclear and Co., 1876 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")), p. 183, "Harry Bluff" ("When a boy, Harry Bluff left his friends and his home") (1 text)
Roud #13783
BROADSIDES:
LOC, "Harry Bluff" ("When a boy, Harry Bluff left his friends and his home"), H. De Marsan (New York), 1859-1860 @ https://www.loc.gov/item/amss-sb20184b/
LOC, "Harry Bluff" ("When a boy, Harry Bluff left his friends and his home"), Deming (Boston), n.d. @ https://www.loc.gov/resource/amss.as105210/?r=-0.168,0.005,1.427,1.099,0
Bodleian, Bod5965 Johnson Ballads 21, "Harry Bluff" ("When a boy, Harry Bluff left his friends and his home"), T. Birt (London), 1828-1829
NOTES [206 words]: The Yankee sailor versions cited are Frank-JollySailorsBold, Grigg's Southern and Western Songster, The Universal Songster and Museum of Mirth, and the two Library of Congress broadsides.
The British sailor versions cited are The Quaver, Shannon and the Bodleian broadside.
Yankee: Frank, Griggs, Universal, LOC, LOC
Broadside LOC: H. De Marsan dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site. - BS
There were two Isaac Pococks, uncle and nephew; Sir Isaac Pocock, the uncle, was a mariner; the nephew (1782-1835) was a painter and drama-writer. One of the younger Pocock's plays is "Robinson Crusoe: or, The Bold Bucaniers: A Romantic Melo-Drama," published by John Miller in 1817 "The musick, composed and selected by Mr. Ware." It contains a character, "Harry Bluff," said in the Dramatis Personae to be "the Mate of Diego's Ship"), and played by "Mr. Emery." (All this from the copy on Google Books.) The text as printed does not contain this song, but presumably it was composed for this play or in its aftermath. So probably the music should be credited to Ware.
For another Pocock song, see "Poor Bessy (The Parting)." - RBW
Last updated in version 7.0
File: FJSB189

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