Fairhaven Water Company

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.