Room 7 Desk Restoration Project
It's amazing to realize that the 102 wooden desks and seats in Room 7 are 118 years old, and yet they are still very functional and utilized every day by students at FHS. But this summer it came to our attention that the horizontal oak boards on the desk tops were starting to shrink and would eventually collapse into the desks. We cannot imagine this historically gorgeous classroom without these unique desks and chairs.
So the Alumni Association's Board of Directors took on the largest restoration project that we've undertaken in the last 20 years, and we contracted with Jim Zine of Cape Cod Furniture Restoration in Wareham to remove the desks, by taking 12 of them at a time to his shop and then sanding, repairing and staining them, and then return and re-install those and take another dozen. Jim started in early August and as of October 1st he had completed and re-installed about 50 of the desks, and as one can see in the photo, they look fantastic. Henry H. Rogers would be very proud.
We don't know of any other public high school in America that can come close to matching the beauty of our high school, and our mission is to try to maintain and restore as many of the beautiful features of the "Castle on the Hill" as we are able. This project is going to cost us $31,000 but we feel that this is money well spent. Jim expects to be finished by the end of October, and once completed, we will publish an updated photo of the entire room. Thank you for your loyal support of our Alumni Association as we undertake projects like this one. We couldn't do any of this work with your support.