Henry Huttleston Rogers
"The Man Who Built Fairhaven"
(1840-1909)
Henry Huttleston Rogers was born in Fairhaven in 1840, the second of three children of Rowland and Mary (Huttleston) Rogers. As a boy he delivered newspapers, worked as a grocery clerk and was baggage master for the Fairhaven Branch Railroad. At the age of twenty-one, he left Fairhaven for the oil fields of Pennsylvania. There he and a partner, Charles Ellis, started their own oil company, the Wamsutta Oil Refinery in McClintocksville.
Later Rogers became manager of the Charles Pratt Oil Co., which merged in 1874 with the Standard Oil Company. Rogers eventually became president of six and vice-president of thirteen of the Standard Oil Trust companies. As the right-hand-man of John D. Rockefeller, Rogers was one of the most powerful businessmen in country. He was also connected with U.S. Steel, Amalgamated Copper, and several gas companies and railroads. Near the end of his life he financed the 500-mile Virginian Railroad at a cost of $35 million.
Rogers married his high school sweetheart, Abbie Gifford, and summered in Fairhaven with his five children. After Abbie died in 1894 at the age of 53, Rogers married Emilie (or Emelie) Augusta Randel Hart. In 1895 he built a large mansion near Fort Phoenix in the southern part of town overlooking the bay. Most of this house was demolished in 1915 and none of the main house is left today.
In 1885, with the building of a grammar school, Rogers began a series of benefactions to his hometown, giving Fairhaven some of the most beautiful public buildings in the country. Besides the spectacular architecture gracing the town, Fairhaven has Rogers to thank for its public water system, roads, and Cushman Park, which was a boggy pond before Rogers had it filled and landscaped.
Rogers was a close friend of author Mark Twain, who often visited the Rogers family in town, frequently arriving on Rogers’ 225-foot steam yacht Kanawha. At Twain’s suggestion, Rogers gave financial assistance to Helen Keller, who dedicated one of her books to him. Rogers also provided Booker T. Washington with funds for the establishment of schools for southern blacks.
At the time of his death in May of 1909, Henry Huttleston Rogers was worth between 100 and 150 million dollars, placing him at number 22 in the list of the top 100 wealthiest people in American history. His fortune, adjusted to today’s dollars, would be worth more than $40 billion.
A monument, which now stands on the west lawn of Fairhaven High School, was dedicated to Rogers in 1912.
SITES ASSOCIATED WITH HENRY HUTTLESTON ROGERS
Download the self-guided tour sheet here: Rogers Self-Guided Tour.
ROGERS BOYHOOD HOME (1769)
Ruby Eldredge Merrihew House
39 Middle Street, Fairhaven
Private Residence, Not Open to the Public
After the marriage of Rowland and Mary Eldredge (Huttleston) Rogers in 1833, they lived in this Middle Street house, which had been the home of Mary’s grandparents, Ruby and Stephen Merrihew. The house was built about 1769 on one corner of a larger lot that had been purchased by Ruby’s father, Isaiah Eldredge. Ruby, who had married Jethro Allen Jr. after the death of her first husband, lived until 1835 and Mary and Rowland Rogers may have been her caretakers during her last two years. The home was deeded in trust to Mary Rogers through the will of her mother Rhoda Huttleston in 1841.
Henry H. Rogers was raised here, along with his older sister Eliza and his younger brother Rufus. In 1888, an addition was built on the rear. Mary Rogers continued to live here until shortly before her death in 1899.
ROGERS SCHOOL (1885)
100 Pleasant Street
This former elementary school building was the first gift of Henry H. Rogers to the Town of Fairhaven. Built at a time when greater interest in education was sweeping the country, the school, designed by architect Warren Briggs, incorporated the best features in schoolhouse design, including a spacious auditorium on the third floor. Originally the building had living quarters for the custodian, assuring security and the uninterrupted operation of the furnace on cold winter nights.
When the building’s exterior brick began to discolor just five years after the school’s construction, Rogers had all the brick removed and replaced. Fairhaven did not have electric service when the school was built. It was wired for lights in 1890. With an addition built in the 1950s and two portable classrooms added to the rear, the building was used as an elementary school for 128 years, until June 2013.
The town is currently exploring potential future uses for the building. In August 2016, the bell was removed from the school’s tower to be stored for safekeeping.
FAIRHAVEN WATER COMPANY (1893)
Mill Road at Meadow Lane
The Fairhaven Water Company’s original water tower collapsed in 1902 and was replaced with one which stood alongside Route 6 until the 1990s. Henry H. Rogers started the Fairhaven Water Company and had the town’s first public water system installed in 1893 as a source of revenue for the Millicent Library. The trustees of the library held all of the company’s stock. The design and operation of the water system was supervised by Joseph K. Nye, the son of Nye Oil Works founder William F. Nye. In 1968 the Town of Fairhaven took over the Fairhaven Water Company and now runs it under the Department of Public Works. At the time of the takeover, the Massachusetts legislature set up a formula used to determine an annual sum of money the town is required contribute toward the operation of the library.
GEORGE H. TABER MASONIC LODGE (1901)
WASHINGTON STREET SCHOOL (donated 1902)
UNITARIAN MEMORIAL CHURCH (1904)
TABITHA INN / OUR LADY'S HAVEN (1905)
ROGERS FAMILY MAUSOLEUM (1893)
Riverside Cemetery
274 Main Street, Fairhaven
The Rogers mausoleum in Riverside Cemetery was designed by architect Charles Brigham, modeled after a Greek temple of Minerva. It was constructed in 1893. The mausoleum is the final resting place of industrialist and Fairhaven benefactor Henry H. Rogers, his first wife Abbie, three of their children, as well as Rogers’ parents, sister, daughter-in-law Mary, and grandson Henry H. Rogers III.
The mausoleum has a beautiful stained glass window featuring and image of the Madonna and Child. This is visible by looking through the window grill on front doors.
ROGERS MONUMENT (1893)
Lawn of Fairhaven High School
12 Huttleston Avene, Fairhaven
Following the death of Fairhaven’s benefactor Henry H. Rogers in 1909, a committee headed by Walter P. Winsor was formed to build a monument in memory of Rogers.
The traffic island at Huttleston Avenue and Main Street at the entrance of the town was selected as the site of the monument. Rogers’ favorites architects, the firm of Brigham, Coveney, and Bisbee, was selected to design it. The monument is a fluted granite column topped by an electric light. On the base is a bronze medallion featuring a bust of Rogers and a plaque with the following inscription:
IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION
OF THE
WORTHY ACHIEVEMENTS
AND BENEFACTIONS OF
HENRY HUTTLESTON ROGERS
THE PEOPLE OF FAIRHAVEN
HAVE ERECTED THIS MEMORIAL
_______________
SI MONVMENTVM REQVIRIS
CIRCVMSPICE
The final phrase in Latin translates as
“To see his works, look around you.”
The Town of Fairhaven contributed $4,000 toward the cost of the monument. It was erected in 1911 and dedicated with a ceremony at Town Hall on January 29, 1912.
By the 1960s, increased traffic on Route 6 made the monument a hazard and it was the cause of a number of accidents. The monument was relocated to the lawn of Fairhaven High School by Rex Monument Works in 1965.
All historical information on this page was researched and written by Christopher Richard, who served as Fairhaven’s Tourism Director from 1996 to 2024.