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

Bellingham, Massachusetts

44 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Bellingham town. It lies in ZIP code area 02019. It stands on Beaver Brook. The Survey maps it on the Franklin quadrangle. 4,782 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 295 feet above sea level.

Bellingham within Norfolk County

Population over time

2 figures

Bellingham fell from 4,854 to 4,782 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

Year	People	Change
2010	4,854
2020	4,782	-72 (-1%)

Then and now

1887 to 1989

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 Bellingham, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet of Bellingham, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

44 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.

Fires nearby

70 since 2007

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 70 fires within 5 miles of Bellingham between 2007 and 2020, burning about 49 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	24
Recreation and ceremony	18
Smoking	12
Debris and open burning	8
Equipment and vehicle use	6
Arson/incendiarism	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	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
28 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BELLINGHAM
27 September 2015	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BELLINGHAM
27 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BELLINGHAM
25 September 2015	Equipment and vehicle use	2.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BELLINGHAM
17 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	FRANKLIN
16 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	FRANKLIN
13 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	FRANKLIN
13 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	FRANKLIN

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Norfolk County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 313 shown

Museums hold 313 specimens collected within 10 miles of Bellingham between 1843 and 1973: 117 Animalia, 95 Plantae, 94 Fungi, 6 Unrecorded, 1 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A Herz, A. B. Seymour, A. P. D. Piguet 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.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Polygala paucifolia Willd.	1843	Shore	Woonsocket
Nitella tenuissima (Desv.) Kütz.	1874	Piper, S. M.
Carex vestita Willd.	1875	Collector unspecified	Norfolk.
Loxia curvirostra minor (C.L.Brehm, 1846)	1877	Charles A. Houghton	West Medway
Passerina cyanea (Linnaeus, 1766)	1877	Charles A. Houghton	West Medway
Ensis directus (Conrad, 1844)	1881	Eaton	Massachusetts
Podiceps auritus cornutus (J.F.Gmelin, 1789)	1881	Daniel Duncan	West Medway
Fungi	1882	S. Higginson
Roestelia lacerata Mérat	1883	A. B. Seymour
Stamnaria americana Massee & Morgan	1883	W. G. Farlow
Acorus americanus (Raf.) Raf.	1884	Nathaniel T. Kidder	Charles River, above Medfield
Gymnosporangium clavariiforme (Wulfen) DC.	1885	A. B. Seymour

All 313 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 11 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 11 workings within 5 miles of Bellingham: 8 past producers, 2 producers, 1 unknown. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Candlewood Recreation Area	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Carl A Molinari	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Carl A. Molinari Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Franklin Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
High Street Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Highway Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
O A Lafleur	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Richard C Hill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Sand & Gravel Operation	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Town of Bellingham	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Norfolk County

Storms nearby

18 since 1996

The National Weather Service names Bellingham in 18 storm reports between 1996 and 2023: 5 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail, 4 flood, 3 lightning. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
March 2010	Flood	Bellingham	$8,320,000	Four to six inches of rain fell across Norfolk County, resulting in the Charles River at Dover and the Neponset River at Norwood rising to major flood.\|\|Several small streams rose above flood stage across Norfolk County, including the Charles River at Medway which set a record, the Monatiquot River at East Braintree, and the Old Swamp River at South Weymouth. \|\|Many basements were flooded in Norfolk and Westwood. Numerous streets were closed due to flooding in Holbrook, Medfield, Bellingham, Franklin, Westwood, Medway, Norfolk, Walpole, Quincy, Weymouth, and Millis.\|\|In Bellingham, one family was evacuated from a house on Pine Grove Avenue. The Primavera School on Harpin Street also had some flooding.
June 1998	Flash Flood	Bellingham	$570,000	Peters Brook
June 2006	Lightning	Bellingham	$25,000	no account filed
June 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Bellingham	$8,000	In Bellingham at 540 PM EDT (440 PM EST) a tree fell onto two cars on North Street.
June 2017	Lightning	South Bellingham	$7,000	At 215 PM EST, wires were reported down due to a lightning strike on a utility pole on South Main Street at Laurel Lane in Bellingham.
June 2023	Lightning	South Bellingham	$5,000	In Franklin, lightning started a house fire on Prospect Street.
August 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	North Bellingham	$2,500	At 1:10 PM EST, a tree was brought down on power lines at 711 Pond Street in Franklin. A tree was also brought down on Annabel Lane.
June 2020	Flood	South Bellingham	$2,000	In Franklin, a basement was flooded on Washington Street.
July 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	South Bellingham	$1,000	In the southern part of Bellingham, a large tree was down on power lines at Pulaski Blvd.
December 2020	Flood	South Bellingham	-	In Bellingham at 1044 AM EST, a car was stuck in street flooding on Newland Avenue.
January 2018	Flood	North Bellingham	-	At 1140 AM EST, an amateur radio operator reported Stall Brook was out of its bands and flooding Hartford Avenue/Route 126.
June 2001	Tornado (F0)	Bellingham	-	Brief F0 touchdown
June 2001	Hail	Bellingham	-	no account filed
June 2000	Hail	Bellingham	-	no account filed
August 1999	Hail	Bellingham	-	no account filed
August 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Bellingham	-	no account filed
July 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Bellingham	-	no account filed
June 1996	Hail	Bellingham	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Norfolk 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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Charles River Grove	0.4 miles	44
Midland	0.6 miles	44
Forest Park	0.8 miles	44
Maple Ridge	0.9 miles	44
Wethersfield	1.1 miles	44
Scott Hill Acres	1.3 miles	44
Happy Hills	2.0 miles	44
Country View Estates	2.1 miles	44

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.

Wikipedia article on Bellingham	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q4884018	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 611653. 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.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.