Fairhaven High School Is Not What I Always Believed It to Be

Don't you hate it when you find out that something you always believed to be true isn't?

It's almost like finally understanding the line of a song you've been singing wrong since you first heard it on the radio years ago.

Recently, while writing an article about author Mark Twain's close ties to the Town of Fairhaven and legendary Fairhaven town resident Henry Huttleston Rogers, I learned the truth about Fairhaven High School.

In doing so, everything I thought I knew about the school unraveled.

It's like finally realizing that professional wrestling is fake when you are a kid.

Henry Huttleston Rogers' love affair with Fairhaven – and the town's with him – was real.

Rogers shared his success with the people of his beloved Fairhaven, bestowing upon the town Fairhaven High School, which he called "The Castle on the Hill," as well as Fairhaven Town Hall, Millicent Library, the Rogers School, the Unitarian Memorial Church, Masonic Hall and Cushman Park.

The main building of Fairhaven High School was built in 1905 and an addition was added in 1996. The school is the only high school in the Fairhaven Public School District.

Henry Huttleston Rogers died on May 19, 1909, four years after the high school was completed. Since I was a small child, I have believed that the high school building was Rogers' home until his death. It took me 66 years to learn I was wrong all that time.

Rogers, a powerful tycoon of his day, was raised in the Rogers family home on Middle Street, which still stands. As an adult, Rogers owned an 85-room mansion near Fort Phoenix, which was demolished in 1915.