Sea Chest

Sea chest with image of vessel Challenger painted inside. She was the Down Easter Challenger launched by the Sewall yard in Bath in 1877.

George Eugene Jones painted this using brushes made from rope and paint found on ship. He apprenticed as a painter with a coach builder, then went to sea on a schooner in 1874, when he was 21. He signed on the square rigger Dexter in 1875 for a New York to California voyage, at the end of which the ship was to be sold. After serving on some Alaskan fishing vessels, he signed on the Challenger in 1878 bound for England, making two voyages, paying off in November 1879.