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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.

Research this city

Bellingham within Norfolk County

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

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, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. 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.

YearPeople Change
20104,854
20204,782-72 (-1%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

21 surveys from 44 printed 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

10,816 words on this township

History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1884 names this settlement in its chapter on Bellingham Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

He bought the site upon which his house and shop now stand when it was a barren ledge of rocks, but through his taste and skill it has been transformed into one of the handsomest places in the town of Braintree.

Passage source: History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1884.

Previous to the 17th of November, A.D. 1719, that tract of land now known as the town of Bellingham existed merely as am unimportant portion of the town of Dedham, which town then extended from Mendon line to the line of Providence, came to particular consideration on the 27th of October, A.D. 1713, when the Dedham _proprietors granted thirty-five acres of it to one Jacob Bartlett, who was found already settled on the premises. At this early period so vast and extensive was the territorial area that acquiring land by purchase was almost altogether unknown. As a matter of record, the first public gathering on the above-named tract was a meeting of the settlers called by virtue of a crown warrant, the return upon which was as follows : is appointed to be held and kept at the house of Deacon Thomas Sanford, in Mendon, on the eleventh day of March next ensuing, at eight o'clock in the morning, then and there to agree upon a division of land and what relates thereunto, longing to Dedham, westward of Wrentham, and ye Inhabitance of a Considerable Farm adjoyning thereto and ye Inhabitance of a small Corner of Mendon ajacent Thereto (to ye number of That Whereas ye above Sd Inheritance are Scituated at a Remoat Distance from ye Respective Towns where they at present belong: (viz.) The Inhabitance of the Town of Dedham, to ye number of three and 20 Families are about Twenty miles Distance from the Town where they belong and Doe Deuty, & being very Remoate from ye Publie worship of God, & The Inhabitance, to the number of thirteen families of ye above Sd Farme being Six or Seven miles Distance from ye place of Public worship: & ye Inhabitance of Mendon afore Sd being about four miles Distance; and Considering our Remoateness & ye Inconvenianecys we Labour under by Reason of the same: and that ye uniting and Incorporating of ye above Sd Tracts togeather & making of

Passage source: History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1884.

Them a Town may put us in a way in Some Convenient Time to obtain ye Settlement of ye Gospel among us &e (the uniting of ye Above Sd Tracts of Land, Together will make a Town of aboute seven Miles Long & three miles & half wide) and Further Considering what ye Inhabitance of ye above Sd Tract of Dedham Land & the Farme are already Incorporated into a Training Companie and that they have little or No Benefit of Town Privelidges or having No benefit of ye Schools we do Respectively Pay to. The whole Number of Families belonging to ye above Sd tracts being forty & Lands enough already Laid

Passage source: History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1884.

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 Bellingham Town - it names this place 23 more 23 times.

Fires near this place

115 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 115 fires within 5 miles of Bellingham between 2003 and 2020, burning about 69 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/undetermined33
Debris and open burning26
Recreation and ceremony25
Smoking20
Equipment and vehicle use7
Railroad operations and maintenance2
Arson/incendiarism1
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

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
8 September 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 September 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
28 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBELLINGHAM
27 September 2015Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBELLINGHAM
27 September 2015Recreation and ceremony1.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBELLINGHAM
25 September 2015Equipment and vehicle use2.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBELLINGHAM
21 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
21 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.4 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Norfolk County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 313 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. 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.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
A photograph of the species Polygala paucifolia, not of this specimenPolygala paucifolia Willd.1843ShoreWoonsocket
A photograph of the species Nitella tenuissima, not of this specimenNitella tenuissima (Desv.) Kütz.1874Piper, S. M.
A photograph of the species Carex vestita, not of this specimenCarex vestita Willd.1875Collector unspecifiedNorfolk.
A photograph of the species Loxia curvirostra, not of this specimenLoxia curvirostra minor (C.L.Brehm, 1846)1877Charles A. HoughtonWest Medway
A photograph of the species Passerina cyanea, not of this specimenPasserina cyanea (Linnaeus, 1766)1877Charles A. HoughtonWest Medway
A photograph of the species Ensis directus, not of this specimenEnsis directus (Conrad, 1844)1881EatonMassachusetts
A photograph of the species Podiceps auritus, not of this specimenPodiceps auritus cornutus (J.F.Gmelin, 1789)1881Daniel DuncanWest Medway
Fungi1882S. Higginson
Roestelia lacerata Mérat1883A. B. Seymour
A photograph of the species Stamnaria americana, not of this specimenStamnaria americana Massee & Morgan1883W. G. Farlow
A photograph of the species Acorus americanus, not of this specimenAcorus americanus (Raf.) Raf.1884Nathaniel T. KidderCharles River, above Medfield
A photograph of the species Gymnosporangium clavariiforme, not of this specimenGymnosporangium clavariiforme (Wulfen) DC.1885A. B. Seymour

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

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 13 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 13 workings within 5 miles of Bellingham: 9 past producers, 3 producers, 1 unknown. 3 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.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Candlewood Recreation AreaSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Carl A MolinariSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Carl A. Molinari PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Franklin PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
High Street PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Highway PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
O A LafleurSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Oliveira PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Richard C HillSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Rosenfeld PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Norfolk County

Storms near this place

18 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
March 2010FloodBellingham$8,320,000Four 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 1998Flash FloodBellingham$570,000Peters Brook
June 2006LightningBellingham$25,000no account filed
June 2021Thunderstorm WindBellingham$8,000In Bellingham at 540 PM EDT (440 PM EST) a tree fell onto two cars on North Street.
June 2017LightningSouth Bellingham$7,000At 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 2023LightningSouth Bellingham$5,000In Franklin, lightning started a house fire on Prospect Street.
August 2017Thunderstorm WindNorth Bellingham$2,500At 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 2020FloodSouth Bellingham$2,000In Franklin, a basement was flooded on Washington Street.
July 2019Thunderstorm WindSouth Bellingham$1,000In the southern part of Bellingham, a large tree was down on power lines at Pulaski Blvd.
December 2020FloodSouth Bellingham-In Bellingham at 1044 AM EST, a car was stuck in street flooding on Newland Avenue.
January 2018FloodNorth Bellingham-At 1140 AM EST, an amateur radio operator reported Stall Brook was out of its bands and flooding Hartford Avenue/Route 126.
June 2001Tornado (F0)Bellingham-Brief F0 touchdown
June 2001HailBellingham-no account filed
June 2000HailBellingham-no account filed
August 1999HailBellingham-no account filed
August 1999Thunderstorm WindBellingham-no account filed
July 1998Thunderstorm WindBellingham-no account filed
June 1996HailBellingham-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.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Charles River Grove0.4 miles44
Midland0.6 miles44
Forest Park0.8 miles44
Maple Ridge0.9 miles44
Wethersfield1.1 miles44
Scott Hill Acres1.3 miles44
Happy Hills2.0 miles44
Country View Estates2.1 miles44

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 BellinghamAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q4884018The 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.