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

Berkley, Massachusetts

34 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1885 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Berkley town. It lies in ZIP code area 02779. It stands on Bryant Hill. The Survey maps it on the Assonet quadrangle.

Berkley within Bristol County

Then and now

1885 to 1985

The same ground, surveyed 100 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Berkley, surveyed 1985

Topographic sheet of Berkley, surveyed 1885

Topographic sheets covering this place

34 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

28,738 words on this township

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

From this celebrated man, preacher, writer, scholar, philanthropist, and metaphysician the town of Berkley undoubtedly derived its name, for tradition says, "In 1735, when certain inhabitants, living in the southerly part of Taunton and the northerly part of the South Precinct, or Purchase, then Dighton, asked the Great and General Court, for reasons set forth in their petition, for an act of incorporation as a new township," the name of Berkeley was suggested by some one who had probably formed an acquaintance with George Berkeley, then late Bishop of Cloyne, who just before that time had resided at Newport, R. I.

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

The suggestion and adoption of the name of so distinguished a Christian philosopher and poet reflects great credit upon the taste and liberality of religious sentiments of all parties interested, for it will be remembered that Episcopalians were seldom complimented in such manner, even in the " Old Colony," whose fame was never shadowed by religious persecution.

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

Bishop Berkeley was a remarkable man for that or any other age, remarkable for his broad Christianity, benevolence, and original philosophical ideas, which, like other new ideas, are always an easy subject of ridicule and misrepresentation.

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

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 Berkley Town - it names this place 75 more 75 times.

Fires near this place

40 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 40 fires within 5 miles of Berkley between 2015 and 2020, burning about 26 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	20
Debris and open burning	14
Recreation and ceremony	3
Arson/incendiarism	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Smoking	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
8 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
6 August 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.5 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 August 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
21 July 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
21 July 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
20 July 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
17 July 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
15 July 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.2 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 1,383 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,383 specimens collected within 10 miles of Berkley between 1850 and 1975: 785 Animalia, 492 Plantae, 94 Fungi, 9 Chromista, 3 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A E Schuyler, A. A. Eaton 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
Ranunculus bulbosus L.	1850	not recorded
Vitis labrusca L.	1850	not recorded
Apocynum cannabinum L.	1855	F. C. Seymour	Rehoboth
Condylura cristata (Linnaeus, 1758)	1855	Preparator(s): Edwin V. Komarek	Middleboro
Microtus pennsylvanicus pennsylvanicus (Ord, 1815)	1855	John W. Jenks	Middleboro
Peromyscus leucopus (Rafinesque, 1818)	1855	John W. Jenks	Middleboro
Astur Lacepède, 1799	1860	C. D. Lincoln	Taunton
Carex panicea L.	1863	J. H. Dean
Carex L.	1864	J. H. Dean	Taunton.
Carex vulpinoidea Michx.	1864	J. H. Dean
Baptisia tinctoria (L.) R.Br.	1866	Joseph Blake	Middleboro
Carex bullata Willd.	1866	Rev. J. Blake	Middleborough

All 1,383 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

9 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 9 workings within 5 miles of Berkley: 4 past producers, 4 producers, 1 unknown. 4 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
Assonet Sand and Gravel Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
East Freetown Pit & Assonet Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Freetown Development Co. Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
King Trucking Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Lanzisera Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Mc Cabe Sand and Gravel Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Mccabe Sand & Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Mccabe Sand and Gravel Company Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Randy Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Bristol County

Storms near this place

3 since 2007

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Berkley in 3 storm reports between 2007 and 2008: 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 flood. 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 2007	Flood	Berkley	$15,000	Flooding closed a portion of Route 79 in Berkley at Forge Road. In New Bedford, several streets were closed including Purchase and Sawyer Streets, where cars were stranded in flood waters. Buffington Brook in Somerset rise out of its banks and flooded Route 138. The Acushnet River in Acushnet came out of its banks at Hamlin Street.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Berkley	$5,000	Multiple trees were downed by thunderstorm winds.
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Berkley	-	Numerous trees downed in Berkeley and Freetown.

Every storm recorded in Bristol 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
Berkley Bridge	1.5 miles	34
Segreganset	1.7 miles	34
Camp Welch	2.0 miles	34
North Dighton	2.5 miles	34
Weir Village	2.6 miles	33
Dighton	3.0 miles	34
Myricks	3.1 miles	34
Chestnut Tree Corner	3.5 miles	33

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 613043. 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.