Howland Road

OK, Mr. History Person,
Since now I know who the different Howlands were [from the Navigator’s “Encyclopedia Fairhaven”], which one is Howland Road named after? Just curious.
Best, —B.F., Arsene Street


To be honest, I’m not quite sure.

The most likely choice was the one who owned the property at the time the Coggeshall Street Bridge was built and the road was run to it from Main Street. That was John H. Howland (born 1834) who was a Selectman during the time Henry H. Rogers was Superintendent of Streets. But his father, John Milton Howland (born 1810) had owned that property previously and his father Capt. John Howland (born 1776) was also associated with that property. (The ship John Howland that rescued Manjiro Nakahama was named after that first Capt. Howland.)

The large red home at the southwest corner of Main Street and Howland Road was the home of at least two of those three John Howlands.

In 1890, the construction of the Coggeshall Street Bridge was begun. On January 11 of that year, Town Meeting voted to accept the layout of a street leading west from Main Street to the eastern end of the proposed bridge. (Oddly, an “Oxford Heights” map printed in the 1895 Bristol County Atlas shows that roadway named Coggeshall Street, but the 1899 Fairhaven directory lists it as Howland Road, from the Acushnet River to Main Street, and has no Fairhaven Coggeshall Street at all. Our Coggeshall Street was run from Adams Street to Alden Road sometime later and the whole stretch became Howland Road in the 1990s.)

Howland Road was named after one of the John Howlands or the Howland family in general.