This is a photograph provided by the Senter family, which they say is taken aboard the Sewall ship “Solitaire,” a woodenhulled seagoing barge, built in Bath in 1879. Captain E.H. Thompson commanded the “Solitaire” from June 1892 to May 1893, and then again from August 1896 to March 1898 and also commanded a number of other Sewall vessels. Her specifications were: 229-feet, 1-inch long length, 40-foot, 1-inch long beam and 23-foot, 9-inch draft.

She was purchased by the Navy at Norfolk on Oct. 18, 1917, from the Luckenbach S.S. Co., and commissioned on Aug. 8, 1918, and was assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service the same day. The barge began operations along the Atlantic coast carrying coal from Norfolk to New England ports until she was decommissioned on March 27, 1919, and transferred to the 5th Naval District. She was struck from the Navy list on June 13, 1919, and sold on Sept. 11, 1919. Fate unknown.

The little girl is Capt. Thompson’s adopted daughter, Emma Sewall Thompson, who would later marry Wilbur F. Senter, founder of Brunswick’s department store chain, Senters. She is not really steering the ship — this must be a posed photograph, taken alongside a wharf. There are many wonderful details: Capt. Thompson, trying not to look as evil as his missing teeth make him out to be, the elaborate brass decorations on the wheel, the octagonal skylight for the cabin below, the family dog taking a nap and even a parrot perched on the binnacle, which holds the compass for the helmsman. You can also see that there is no wheelhouse or steering shelter, and that the steering gear is the traditional version of chains running through blocks (pulleys) and pulling the tiller from side to side. Despite the nice skylight and decorative wheel, the owners of this ship have not seen fit to spend the money for a wheelhouse or fancy patented steering gear.

The captain died in 1902 and the “Solitaire” is believed to be the last vessel he commanded.

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Photograph: Senter family. Information: Nathan Lipfert, Maine Maritime Museum.