Item is a collection of transcribed sea chanties, as sung aboard vessels out of Liverpool, Nova Scotia in the 1870's, 1880's, and 1890's, and recalled in whole or part by William H. Smith, of Liverpool, N.S. (born 1867). The words were taken down and prepared in typescript by his son T. Brenton Smith, in the year 1940. Includes the following chanties: "The Loss of the Emma-Jane," "Lay Out, Tack Sheets and Haul," "Bound to Rio," "Blow the Man Down," "Old Hoss," "Screwing in Song," "Way Down in Tennessee," "The City of Baltimore," "Around the World and Home Again," "Old Mother Head's," "Sauer Kraut," "Arriving back at Liverpool," "The Mary," "Brigantine Scrocco," "The Big Five Gallon Jar," "Shiloh Brown," "Shanadore [Shenandoah]," "What You Going to do with a Drunken Sailor," "Goodbye, Fare Ye Well," "Say Old Man," "Harbour Grace," "Liverpool Packet," "Fire in the Foretop," "Sailor's Burial at Sea," "On the Banks of the Sacremento," "Rolling Home to Merry England," "Then Turn out You Jolly Tars," "Whiskey for my Johnnie," "The Banks of Newfoundland," "Hangman Johnnie," "On the Plains of Mexico," "We'll Pay Paddy Doyle for his Boots," "Isle of Fugi," "Old England's Gained the Day," and "Walking in de Middle of de Road." Includes annotations about the chanties, some of which are handwritten and by Thomas H. Raddall.

File contains a transcription of ballads. Includes: "The Frozen Girl," "On the Banks of Newfoundland," "The Worn-Out Sailor," "The Rose of Britons Isle," "The Banks of Brandywine," "The Pride of Glenco," "Sweet Jinny on the Moor," [Untitled], "The Blind Sailor," "The Ship Lady Sherbrooke," "The Cabin Boy," "The Braes of Balquhidder," "The Ramblin' Irishman," "The Desolate Widow," "The Bounty Jumper," "Our Fifer Boy," "The Ghostly Sailors," "The Cumberland," and "Bold Jack Donahue." Includes handwritten annotations by Raddall

Item is a photograph of three former sailors, the "last of the old-time, square rigged sailors" from Liverpool in the period between Confederation and the death of Queen Victoria. William Henry Smith, in the centre, passed away in 1955; Robert Butler, on the left, passed away in 1956; and Charles West is on the right.