From collection J. E. Perkins Collection
ISLAND BELLE
Image of the steamboat ISLAND BELLE in Maine waters, exact location not presently known. Visible in image: A view of the steamboat ISLAND BELLE showing crew members at the jack staff and holding mooring lines at bow and stern. Passengers stand and sit on the upper deck, and freight is piled on the foredeck. Note the hull painted a dark color up to the main deck level, and the absence of an "Eastern Steamship Co." legend under the name on the bow--these things may indicate that the photograph was taken before the E.S.S.Co.'s incorporation in 1901, when color schemes were all-over white and the company name was painted on the hull. ISLAND BELLE was built in Bath, Maine in 1892 and purchased by the Eastern Steamboat Company after 1894. She sailed the Popham route starting in 1899, but by 1901 was assigned to the Boothbay Division of the Eastern Steamship Company. She was still on the E.S.S.Co. books in 1911-1912, but by the early 1920s may have been sold south to Rhode Island and run as a ferry between Providence, Newport, and Block Island.
