The ship ‘Lennie’ was built in 1871 at Belliveau’s Cove, Digby County, Nova Scotia. Her initial owner was William D. Lovitt of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, where she was registered. The ‘Lennie’ was 175 feet in length, with a tonnage of 984 tons.

The Lennie was famous for a mutiny in which Captain Stanley Hatfield and his officers were killed by the crew. Several crew members were later tried and hanged. In 1892 she was sold to Liverpool, England, before being sold again in 1895 to the “Russian Finns” and registered in Mariehamn under the name ‘Lima’. She was broken up in 1921. There are two portraits of the ‘Lennie’ in Yarmouth County Museum, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, both attributed to E.L. Greaves, a ship portrait painter from Liverpool.

William Howard (also frequently and wrongly given as ‘Horde’ or ‘Hoarde’) Yorke was a ship portraitist from Liverpool, the son of William Gay York[e], also a ship portraitist. William’s output was prodigious, and his work is represented in the collections of the Manx Museum, Mystic Seaport, Peabody Essex Museum, and the Maritime Museums of San Francisco and Liverpool.