Seafaring and its bounty

October 23, 2011|By Maria Karagianis, Globe Correspondent

With its quaint name, working harbor, seafaring history, and exceptional architecture, Fairhaven was, for a lifelong Massachusetts resident like me, a revelation. I had no idea it existed.

Although just an hour’s ride from my home near Boston, I had never been to Fairhaven or thought of visiting either this village or the neighboring city of New Bedford as a tourist.

Then one rainy day a few summers ago, while staying at a beach house in the area, my husband and I, on the recommendation of a friend, drove to Elisabeth’s Restaurant in Fairhaven for lunch. There we happened on a surprisingly picturesque, historic village and a delicious, reasonably-priced meal of freshly caught seafood and chorizo stew. A local restaurant patronized by fishermen, Elisabeth’s is located next door to Margaret’s, which is adjacent to a huge working harbor the village shares on one side with New Bedford, connected to Fairhaven by a bridge, and on the other side with Mattapoisett, another quaint, historic seaside village connected to Fairhaven by a 7-mile-long paved bike path.

We became improbable fans of New Bedford, Mattapoisett, and especially of sleepy Fairhaven - of its harbor and beaches, its rich history - from the American Revolution to the Civil War, abolition, and whaling days - and of its extraordinary 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century architecture.

The town has what surely must be some of the most outstanding Romanesque civic architecture in the country, all within a few walkable blocks: a library, Unitarian church, Town Hall, and several schools built in the late 19th century by Fairhaven resident and philanthropist Henry Huddleston Rogers. One of the richest men in the world, Rogers worked for John D. Rockefeller at Standard Oil.

Other famous Fairhaven residents included Joshua Slocum, the first man to sail alone around the world, who built his sloop in Fairhaven and whose classic 1900 book about his adventure (“Sailing Alone Around the World’’) is still in print after 100 years, and Sara Delano, whose grandson Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited her in Fairhaven every summer of his boyhood and later when he became president.

Other visitors have included Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Booker T. Washington, and Frederick Douglass, one of an estimated 700 escaped slaves said to be living in Fairhaven and New Bedford before the Civil War.

Like its neighbors New Bedford and Mattapoisett, Fairhaven was a whaling port. In 1838, it was the second largest in the country after New Bedford. Herman Melville, who made New Bedford famous with “Moby-Dick,’’ departed from Fairhaven aboard the whaling ship Acushnet before coming home to write the novel.