As I’ve mentioned in posts before, the town went all out to greet the visiting sailors when the U.S. Navy’s North Atlantic Squadron made its annual visit to Rockport. Although the quality of this picture is poor, it shows sailors landing at T-Wharf, with a large crowd there to greet them, all decked out in their finest attire. Note the women in long dresses holding parasols.
The sign on the far right, as best I can make it out, says, “Naval Y.M.C.A. of the Town for the Men of the Squadron.”
In an earlier post, the picture showed one of these same vessels entering the harbor from the fleet anchored offshore. I conjectured that it might be some sort of water taxi. As you can see here, there are actually several of these craft. A more likely guess is that they belong to the warships and are used to ferry sailors ashore.
This card identifies no publisher or date. It is safe to say the picture was taken right around 1907, give or take a year.
Vintage Rockport 
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I can tell you EXACTLY what the sign says–you’re close. “Naval Y.M.C.A. at the Town Hall Men of the Squadron Welcome” You can find a picture on memory.loc.gov by the Detroit Publishing Company–just query for Rockport and you’ll spot one with Motif #1 on the left of the image. That same sign is on the right of photo. Download the 150MB uncompressed image and it’s unmistakably clear. Thanks for putting these images up; I’m fascinated by them.
Of course! I have that very picture. Thanks for drawing it to my attention. That would suggest that the image above is from 1906, which is the date of the Detroit Publishing image.