Heaving the lead

William Pearce, the author of “Heaving the Lead,” shows that he knew about seafaring details by “subtly (and nautically) indicating the nearing port through his use of the leadman’s calls,” first “mark nine” or fifty-five feet of water, then “mark seven” or forty-two feet, and finally “mark quarter less five” or twenty-eight feet.[1] The lead was a block of metal attached to a marked line. It was thrown over the side of the ship to determine the water depth. For shallow waters, the lead might weigh seven to fourteen pounds.

Pearce’s lyrics were set to music by William Shield for his operatic farce The Hartford Bridge (1792) and sung by the leading Covent Garden tenor, Charles Incledon (1763-1826). The aria became very popular and the text was published in songsters, broadsides, and chapbooks well into the nineteenth century; it appeared in forty-four songsters between 1797 and 1820 (Keller, Early American Songsters). In America some versions (1807-11) were changed to reflect a native homecoming: “For Columbia, when with favoring gale. . .” (Roud; Bodleian; R. Keller, Early American Secular Music and Its European Sources; Wolfe, Secular Music #8062-65, 10329). Most versions of the song are printed with the three verses on this broadside. A fourth verse with the conclusion of the narrative appeared in an 1804 songster.

Now to her birth the ship draws nigh:
We take in sail, she feels the tide:
Stand clear the cable!—we safely ride.
The watch is set, and thro’ the night
We hear the seamen with delight
Proclaim all’s well! (Merry Medley 20)

The Democratic-Republican “Ode Sung at Independence” was printed in the Boston Democrat as “Ode 2d, written by Nathaniel H. Wright. Sung by I. D. Lucas—tune, Hail Columbia” (July 6, 1805).[2] Evidently part of a July fourth celebration, lines 9 and 10 of Wright’s text parody and then quote a recently published pro-Jefferson text to the same tune, entitled “The New Hail Columbia.”

The Bill of Rights shall be our boast,
And Jefferson our fav’rite toast. (Hudson [NY] Bee, June 11, 1805)

Party factionalism ran very hot in Boston in this period. Even the national celebration of July fourth was sectional, with new odes for each party’s ceremonies. An entirely different text, also to the tune of “Hail Columbia,” was published in the New York Commercial Advertiser on July 12, 1805, as “sung on the Fourth of July, at the Celebration of American Independence, by the Young Federal Republicans of Boston. (Written by one of the Company.)” A paean to Federalism, it praises Adams as a leader, “patriot, hero, sage,” and shouts “like our sires, WE WILL BE FREE!”

For the music, see Hail Columbia.