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

Bedford Springs, Massachusetts

41 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Bedford town. It lies in ZIP code area 01730. It stands on Vine Brook. The Survey maps it on the Billerica quadrangle.

Bedford Springs within Middlesex County

Then and now

1886 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 102 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Bedford Springs, surveyed 1988
Topographic sheet of Bedford Springs, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

41 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.

What happened here

An account from the chapter on Bedford town, in the words of 1908.

1908, Bedford Town

Biographical

The subject of this sketch was born in Salem, Mass., May 7, 1820, in a house on the opposite corner to the one in which White was murdered by the Kuappa and Crowninshield. In 1821 his parents removed to Moultonborough, N. H., where they lived a few years, and William was sent to the village school for a brief term.

Read the rest of this passage

Fires nearby

41 since 1992

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 41 fires within 5 miles of Bedford Springs between 1992 and 2020, burning about 31 acres in total. 1 started naturally. None was 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
Debris and open burning24
Missing data/not specified/undetermined13
Recreation and ceremony3
Natural1

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

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
22 September 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
1 September 2001Naturalunder an acreMinute Man National Historical ParkFISKEHILL
26 August 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
17 August 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
9 June 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
6 June 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
25 June 2020Debris and open burning1.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
17 June 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 1,079 shown

Museums hold 1,079 specimens collected within 10 miles of Bedford Springs between 1898 and 1975: 485 Animalia, 350 Plantae, 223 Fungi, 9 Chromista, 6 Unrecorded, 4 Protozoa, 2 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A. B. Seymour, A. B. Seymour & M. D. Feigley 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 SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Specimen of Trientalis borealis Raf.Trientalis borealis Raf.1900A. P. Chute
Aglaospora profusa (Fr.) De Not.1898Collector unspecified
A photograph of the species Boletus griseus, not of this specimenBoletus griseus Frost1898H. Webster
A photograph of the species Cladonia rangiferina, not of this specimenCladonia rangiferina (L.) Weber1898Francis P DanielsArlington Heights
A photograph of the species Cordyceps capitata, not of this specimenCordyceps capitata (Holmsk.) Link1898Conant, [?] F.Middlesex Fells
A photograph of the species Cucurbitaria elongata, not of this specimenCucurbitaria elongata (Fr.) Grev.1898J. G. Hall
A photograph of the species Agaricus brunnescens, not of this specimenAgaricus brunnescens Peck1900Morris, G. E.Waltham
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.1900Thaxter, RolandStony Brook, Mass. [Massachusetts]
A photograph of the species Batrachospermum gelatinosum, not of this specimenBatrachospermum gelatinosum (L.) DC.1900F.S. CollinsMalden
A photograph of the species Betula alleghaniensis, not of this specimenBetula alleghaniensis Britton1900E. F. Williams
A photograph of the species Boletus badius, not of this specimenBoletus badius (Fr.) Fr.1900G. E. Morris
A photograph of the species Boletus frostii, not of this specimenBoletus frostii J.L.Russell1900A. W. Flint

All 1,079 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

9 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 9 workings within 5 miles of Bedford Springs: 6 past producers, 2 producers, 1 plant. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Copper, Titanium. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Cu ProspectCopperPast Producer
Dynamet Tech--Burlington, Ma.TitaniumPlant
Burlington S & G Co., Inc. PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Burlington Sand and GravelSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
D R RaymondSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Joseph Roberto IncSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Joseph Roberto PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Quinn-Perkins PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Thomas Quinn Co IncSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

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.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
South Billerica0.9 miles41
Nutting Lake1.5 miles41
Bedford1.8 miles48
Riverside2.2 miles41
Pinehurst2.4 miles41
Rio Vista2.6 miles41
Billerica2.9 miles41
The Pines3.0 miles41

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611763. 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.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.