Henry Huttleston Rogers
Graduating class: 1856
Inducted into Hall of Fame: 2007
Hall of Fame Category: Lifetime Achievement
"Si monumentium requiris, circumspice." "If you would see his works, look about you." These words are inscribed on the granite statue of Henry Huttleston Rogers which stands on the southwest lawn of Fairhaven High School. Mr. Rogers' love for his hometown was reflected in the many gifts to the community, made possible by his success as a business man.
Following his graduation for the original high school, Mr. Rogers found work as a clerk and delivery boy at the Union Street Grocery Store, then the largest emporium in Fairhaven. In 1861 he found employment as a baggage master and brakeman for the Fairhaven Branch Railroad for $1.16 per day. Upon the discovery of petroleum fields in Pennsylvania and hearing of the wealth pouring in from those fields, Henry left Fairhaven for the Titusville, PA area and formed a partnership with Charles Ellis (another Fairhaven native) each contributing $600 to their joint effort. Shortly after this partnership, John D. Rockefeller appeared in Titusville and within five years combined all of his companies into Standard Oil in order to gain a monopoly in the oil industry. Rogers was the outspoken voice in the struggle of the the independent oil producers to prevent this take-over.
Eventually, Rogers and Charles Pratt formed a partnership in Brooklyn, NY and became famous for Pratt's Astral Oil. Rockefeller continued to make attempts to control the oil industry and finally Rogers and Pratt merged their company with Standard Oil in return for stock in Standard Oil and a seat on the Board of Directors for each of them. Almost immediately Rogers was elected VP of United Pipe Lines. He became President of National Transit Co., VP of the Board of Directors of Standard Oil Trust and served in a host of high level capacities. At the time of his death in 1909 he was the VP of Standard Oil as well as the VP or President of several insurance companies, gas and electric companies and railroads.
Mr. Rogers' gifts to Fairhaven are well known: Millicent Library, Unitarian Church, Rogers School, Town Hall, Tabitha Inn, Cushman Park (filled in 13 acres of marsh land), Atlas Tack (Rogers purchased the American Tack Company to save the jobs of hundreds of local workers), Masonic Building, Fairhaven Water Works, and Fairhaven High School.
His lesser known gifts include: Mattapoisett Center School, White Home for the nursing students of St. Luke's Hospital, Old Bank of Commerce building presented to the Old Dartmouth Historical Society, home for nurses at the Oil City Hospital in Pennsylvania. Rogers gave $100,000 to the Meadeville Theological Seminary to establish a professorship and funding for a building at the Messiah Home for Little Children in New York.
Mr. Rogers also supported the work of Booker T. Washington, and provided a life long pension for Helen Keller as well as paying for her college education at Radcliffe. He financially backed, guided and extended the hand of friendship to Mark Twain. Truly, Mr. Rogers was a "man for all seasons".