The museum says:

“Steam-powered ferries were an important means of transportation throughout the 19th Century and into the early 20th, linking Cape Ann to seaports up and down the Eastern Seaboard and to the rest of the world. In Gloucester, ferry service was also available around the Inner Harbor, helping get residents to work and visitors to scenic sites around the city.

“The Little Giant provided passenger ferry service around Gloucester’s Inner Harbor for nearly 40 years. Built in 1878 at the John Bishop Shipyard in Gloucester, the jaunty vessel was 46 feet long and 16 feet in breadth. Her cabins were finished in black walnut and oak, and she had long wooden benches on her upper deck sheltered by a striped awning.’’