Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen (1850-1951), a noted marine painter, painted a portrait of the Governor Dingley in or about 1899. Jacobsen, a native of Denmark, moved to New York in the 1870s and began sketching ships in the New York harbor.

He soon received commissions to paint ship portraits and was hired by some companies to record their entire fleets.

The Governor Dingley was commissioned by the Eastern Steamship Corporation to replace the sidewheeler Portland lost at sea in 1898. She was built in 1899 in Chester, Pennsylvania.

This was a steel-hulled, screw-driven ship that carried passengers and freight between Boston, Portland, Eastport, Lubec and St. John, New Brunswick.