Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Acoaxet, Massachusetts

37 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1888 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Westport town. It lies in ZIP code area 02790. It stands on Lions Tongue. The Survey maps it on the Head of Westport quadrangle.

Acoaxet within Bristol County

Then and now

1888 to 1985

The same ground, surveyed 97 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Acoaxet, surveyed 1985

Topographic sheet of Acoaxet, surveyed 1888

Topographic sheets covering this place

37 sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

In the county-history sources

119,038 words on this township

History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883; A History of Bristol County, Massachusetts (Vol. 2), published 1924 names this settlement in its chapter on Westport Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

In 1819 religious meetings were held at the Head of the River, when Peleg Sisson, Jonathan Mosher, George Mosher, Thaddeus Reynolds, Catharine Sowle, Sophia Tripp, Rachel Tripp, Susannah Lawton, Elizabeth Tripp, and Phebe Mosher, being in "fellowship, requested Elder Daniel Hix, of Dartmouth, to i meet with them, and, agreeable to their request, acknowledged them the First Christian Church in Westport, Mass." They continued to worship in private dwellings until the completion of their house of worship, which was erected under the following call :

Passage source: History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883.

"One of the most quiet, pleasing, and successful business villages in the vicinity of Fall River is Westport Factory, some six miles out from this city, on Westport River, in the town of Westport. A long time ago capital was invested there and a cotton-mill of medium size was erected, the power being furnished by a dam across Westport River. Some twenty or more years ago this property was purchased by Mr. William B. Trafford, who for some years previously had been associated with Mr. Augustus Chace, of this city, in manufacturing enterprises. Mr. Trafford reorganized the mill and infused a new life into every department, and it soon became a standing success. Mr. Trafford secured the best of help, discouraged the use of alcohol, encouraged the operatives to build themselves permanent homes, and in the history of the concern there has been no clashing between employer and employe on the questions of labor or wages. No strikes are said to afflict this concern, because the work-people are contented and satisfied. Many of them own their neat little homes, and on riding through the village a noticeable feature is the cleanliness of everything and the quietness surrounding the place. A neat little chapel has been erected, which is occupied half of each Sunday by a Protestant and the other half by a Roman Catholic preacher, if they choose to preach, and as there is no liquor-shop allowed, there is no drunkenness unless the victim buys his liquor abroad. In fact, it is a strict rule that the work-people must keep sober, and the rule is obeyed. Mr. William B. Trafford was a man of great public spirit, and paid out of his own pocket half the expenses of a new road from the Narrows to the Factory, three miles or more, some ten years ago. He died about 1880, but fortunately had reared his sons to the business. Within a year after his death the oldest son was thrown from his buggy and killed. Mr. Chapin Trafford, another son, now manages the concern. The business now carried on is buying the waste of the cotton-mills in Fall River and cheap cotton, and manufacturing cotton batting and yarn for cheap goods. All their supplies are hauled from this city, and the finished 'goods returned the same, and their heavy teams are quite a feature on our streets. The business has been highly profitable. Mr. Trafford, the manager, completed an elegant mansion in the Factory village last year, and lives neighbor to his operatives, but in elegant style. It is rare to find an established business that has done better than this in the same number of years."

Passage source: History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883.

relating to school affairs in this part of the town in the early days, there is no way of knowing about that arrangement. Previous to 1840 it is not possible to find the record of any purchase of land for school purposes in Westport. The schools throughout the town in 1923 were as follows: The high school, whose four-year arrangement had been completed in 1923; the schools at North Westport, Sanford Road, Beulah Road, Factory, Head, Brownell's Corner, Macomber's Corner, Point, South Westport, Horseneck, Acoaxet. There were 774 pupils, and the amount of appropriation for schools maintenance was $45,000. Edward L. Hill was the superintendent.

Passage source: A History of Bristol County, Massachusetts (Vol. 2), published 1924.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Westport Town - it names this place 8 more 8 times.

Fires near this place

18 since 2008

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 18 fires within 5 miles of Acoaxet between 2008 and 2020, burning about 12 acres in total. None started naturally. 3 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	9
Debris and open burning	4
Arson/incendiarism	3
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
1 June 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
7 May 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.2 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 May 2017	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
19 May 2020	Debris and open burning	1.5 acres	Rhode Island Division of Forest Environment	not named
11 May 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 April 2008	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Rhode Island Division of Forest Environment	not named
4 April 2019	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 April 2018	Debris and open burning	1.5 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Bristol County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 1,707 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,707 specimens collected within 10 miles of Acoaxet between 1846 and 1975: 744 Animalia, 702 Plantae, 142 Chromista, 92 Fungi, 21 Bacteria, 6 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by 99121, A. Clark, A. M. Rogers; D. P. Rogers and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Image	Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
	Bangia fuscopurpurea (Dillwyn) Lyngbye	1846	Illegible	Sauconnet Point, RI
	Ptilota elegans Bonnemaison	1846	none seen	Sauconnet Point, Little Compton, RI
	Ahnfeltia plicata (Huds.) Fr.	1851	G. W. Fahnstock	Seaconnet
	Ceramium rubrum C.Agardh	1854	M. E. Fahnestock	Seaconnet
	Ceramium strictum (Kütz.) Rabenh., 1847	1854	Mary E. Fahuestock	Seaconnet
	Champia parvula (C.Agardh) Harv.	1854	Mary E. Fahuestock	Seaconnet
	Chondria baileyana Montagne	1854	M. E. Fahuestock	Seaconnet, RI
	Chordaria flagelliformis (O.F.Müll.) C.Agardh	1854	M. E. Fahuestock	Seaconnet
$A photograph of the species Cladophora refracta, not of this specimen$	Cladophora refracta (Roth) Kütz.	1854	Mary E. Fahuestock	Seaconnet
	Cystoclonium purpurascens (Hudson) Kützing	1854	M. E. Fahnestock	Seaconnet
	Dasya elegans (G.Martens) C.Agardh	1854	M. E. Fahnestock	Seaconnet
	Ectocarpus confervoides Le Jol.	1854	M. E. Fahnestock	Seaconnet

All 1,707 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Westport Point	1.6 miles	37
Macombers Corner	4.3 miles	37
Handy Four Corners	4.5 miles	37
Central Village	4.6 miles	37
South Westport	4.9 miles	37
Slocums Corner	5.3 miles	37
Slades Corner	5.5 miles	37
Snell Corner	5.5 miles	37

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikidata item Q122540379

The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 606711. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.