"The "J.T. Morse" was the last of the picturesque fleet of sidewheelers whose gleaming white hulls and long foaming white wakes were once such a decorative part of the Maine scene, set in the blue of Penobscot Bay against the green background of the mountains and the wooded offshore islands. The vessel was designed specifically for the Rockland-Bar Harbor Line, connecting the overnight Boston-to-Bangor steamers at Rockland. She was ordered as a replacement for the sidewheeler "Mount Desert," built at Bath in 1879, which by the turn of the century had become too small to handle the growing summer passenger and freight business…"
"The "Morse" ran her last regular season in Maine in 1931…Steamer patronage had dwindled because of the competition from the automobile, and it was no longer profitable to operate her…" - Penobscot Bay, Mount Desert and Eastport Steamboat Album by Allie Ryan, p. 6 to 11 - 1972. These six pages tell the complete story of the "J.T. Morse."
