The Acushnet River Safe Boating Club served as home for Last Dance for eight days, a much longer time period than planned. Multiple cold fronts and tropical storm Bill came through the area in one week, keeping the waters off Boston stirred up, unsuitable for passage north to Maine. Fairhaven is a good place to be stuck and the boat club members were welcoming and helpful.
The view through Last Dance's windows on rainy days was of an active commercial harbor as the scallop boats docked to unload their catch at a seafood distributor.
Needing to partake in the scollopmen's harvest, Elizabeth's Cafe provided the local delicacy served in a variety of creative and delicious recipes. Multiple visits were required.
Just behind Elizabeth's is Margaret's, a restaurant begun by Elizabeth's sister. More opportunities to sample the local scallops.
Fairhaven is filled with history, much that can be seen on a bike ride around town. The Old Stone School was open as a historical site. School districts were defined by neighborhoods in the 19th century in Massachusetts, so schools were small and served all students of all ages. The one-room school was the norm.
The docent filling the role of teacher provided a great deal of history, not only of the school but the entire community. He serves as director of tourism. His role as the teacher was unlikely since most of the teachers at the time were young women - single women as married women were not allowed to be school teachers. Often the teacher had just graduated from another district school.
When towns reached a population of 5000, they were required to build a high school. Fairhaven was fortunate to have a native son who was most generous, Henry Huttleston Rogers. Rogers engaged a New England architect, Charles Brigham, who designed a modern school with an Elizabethan influence and paid to have it built in 1906. It still serves the community as the high school today.
Because of Rogers' gifts to the town, Fairhaven has a look of Europe. Multiple architectural styles were employed in the design of public buildings gifted to the city. The high school was actually one of the last buildings Henry H. Rogers donated to the community.
Rogers' first gift to Fairhaven was an elementary school, built in 1885. It is frame construction with a brick veneer. Five years after it was built, the color of the brick faded. Rogers had the brick removed and the building rebricked. The Rogers School served as the town's elementary school through 2013. The town is entertaining proposals for repurposing the school.
Not pleased with the outcome of the elementary school building, Rogers engaged New England architect Charles Brigham to design a library. A granite structure, with a red slate roof and a large stained glass window, it was designed in the Italian Renaissance style and built in 1893.
The library was dedicated to the memory of his daughter, Millicent, who died at 17.
The second building that Brigham designed for Rogers was the town hall, which Rogers financed as a gift from his wife. The French Gothic building has oak paneling, solid brass fixtures and leaded and stained glass windows. It began serving as the town's offices in 1894 and is still used today as the town hall.
Bingham used the English perpendicular Gothic architectural style to design the Unitarian Memorial Church, another public building donated by Henry Huttleston Rogers. It was built of locally quarried granite and Indiana limestone, crafted by 45 European stone masons and dedicated in 1904.
The ornate entry doors are cast bronze, each weighing 4500 pounds.
Rogers, who was a partner of John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler at Standard Oil, also built an Elizabethan style hotel in Fairhaven. He named it the Tabitha Inn to honor his great-grandmother. When it was built in 1905, it was known as one of the finest hotels outside of Boston. Today it serves as a Catholic-operated nursing home, Our Lady's Haven. Rogers left a marvelous legacy in his hometown through beautiful and still-functioning architecture.
