Staten Island: A Song History
"Staten Island" is an old hornpipe. The earliest printing noted by the Traditional Tune Archive is in the second volume of James Aird's Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, published in Glasgow in 1785, in a setting the Archive says matches the modern tune.[1][2] English musicians later copied it into their manuscript tunebooks during the 19th century; Joshua Gibbons of Lincolnshire, for one, entered it as "Scotch Hornpipe" in his book of 1823–26. It has gone by other names, among them "Burns's Hornpipe" and "Stringer's Hornpipe," and in County Donegal it is known as "The Arranmore Ferry."[1]
William Guy Wall, The Bay of New York Looking to the Narrows and Staten Island, Taken from Brooklyn Heights, watercolor and gum arabic, 1820–25. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Whether the tune was ever named for this island is unproven.
Where the title comes from is a matter of guesswork. The Tune Archive's editor suspects a connection with the British garrison on New York's Staten Island during the American Revolution, while others have tied the name to Isla de los Estados, an island just east of Tierra del Fuego that also bore the Dutch name Staten Island, and which mariners watched for as a sign they had rounded Cape Horn. Neither idea is proven.[1] Later printings listed by the Archive include Elias Howe's Second Part of the Musician's Companion (1843), Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883) and Cole's 1000 Fiddle Tunes (1940).[1]
The Tune Archive credits English fiddler Dave Swarbrick with doing much to revive the tune among traditional musicians during the folk revival of the 1960s. The tune is now closely tied to American contra dancing, and old-time players picked it up from contra musicians who moved between the two styles; the Archive rejects the label "Appalachian standard" that is sometimes attached to it.[1] Irish players have taken it up as well, sometimes playing it as a reel.[1]
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