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

Bleachery, Massachusetts

48 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Lowell City. It lies in ZIP code area 01852. It stands on River Meadow Brook. The Survey maps it on the Lowell quadrangle.

Bleachery 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 Bleachery, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Bleachery, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

48 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

160,056 words on this township

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880 names this settlement in its chapter on Lowell City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

The charter was promptly granted by the legislature, and the governor, Edward Everett, signed the act April 1. Its acceptance must be by a majority of the voters in town-meeting assembled, and it suspended the election of town officers for the year 1836, allowing the old board to hold over until their successors were chosen. It gave the seleetmen authority to call the first meeting under the charter, by issuing their warrant before the first Monday in May for the citizens to give in their votes for a mayor, six aldermen, twenty-four councilmen, and six members of the school committee, who were to hold their offices until the first Monday in April, 1837.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

April 20, flags were displayed from St. Paul's and the First Congregational Churches, the Hamilton Mills, Samuel Lawrence's house, the Lowell Machine-Shop, on Warren Street, and the Lowell Bleachery. April 22, the Brigade Band arrived home from Baltimore. The several banks tendered loans of money to the state. April 27, the Soldiers' Aid Association was organized ; Nathan Crosby president, S. W. Stickney treasurer, and M. C. Bryant secretary. The ladies entered heartily into the work of supplying the soldiers witii articles needed for their comfort and convenience. The record of this Association is honorable to all connected with it.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

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 Lowell City - it names this place 2 more 2 times.

Fires near this place

127 since 2001

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 127 fires within 5 miles of Bleachery between 2001 and 2020, burning about 66 acres in total. 4 started naturally. 28 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	34
Debris and open burning	31
Arson/incendiarism	28
Recreation and ceremony	14
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Smoking	4
Natural	4
Power generation/transmission/distribution	3
Misuse of fire by a minor	2
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Other causes	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
6 September 2002	Smoking	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
26 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 September 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
9 August 2002	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
5 August 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
4 August 2002	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
18 August 2002	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
17 August 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 617 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 617 specimens collected within 10 miles of Bleachery between 1898 and 1975: 375 Plantae, 173 Animalia, 36 Fungi, 29 Protozoa, 3 Chromista, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. C. Mathieson, A. F. Newton, A. F. Newton, M. K. Thayer 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
Esox americanus Gmelin, 1789	1898	E. Preble	Maple Meadow Brook near Wilmington, Massachusetts
Exosporium pusillum P.Karst.	1898	King C. A.	Stony Brook
Antennaria howellii subsp. neodioica (Greene) R.J.Bayer	1899	Williams, E.F.
Antennaria neglecta Greene	1899	not recorded
Aristida dichotoma Michx.	1899	E. F. Williams
Arthrosporium compositum Ellis	1899	Rorer	East Billerica
Asarum canadense L.	1899	E. F. Williams
Bidens cernua L.	1899	E. F. Williams
Dichanthelium oligosanthes subsp. scribnerianum (Nash) Freckmann & Lelong	1899	E. F. Williams
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, R.	Stony Brook
Betula nigra L.	1900	not recorded
Boletus frostii J.L.Russell	1900	A. W. Flint

All 617 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 22 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 22 workings within 5 miles of Bleachery: 10 past producers, 7 producers, 4 plants, 1 unknown. 11 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Graphite, Nickel, Gold, Silver, Copper. 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
Dracut Deposit	Cobalt, Nickel	Past Producer	1876, 1939
Dracut Ni Mine/Nickel Mine Hill	Nickel, Gold, Silver, Copper	Past Producer
Avaco Corp--Lowell, Ma.	Graphite	Plant
Stackpole Fibers Co--Lowell, Ma.	Graphite	Plant
Brox Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Chelmsford Mill	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant
Dracut Plant	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Essex Bituminous Concrete Products	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
George Brox Inc	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
A J Gagnon and Sons	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms near this place

5 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Bleachery in 5 storm reports between 2015 and 2015: 4 hail, 1 thunderstorm wind. 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
August 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Bleachery	$5,000	A tree and wires on Amory Road were downed by thunderstorm winds.
August 2015	Hail	Bleachery	-	Lime size hail fell in Waltham.
August 2015	Hail	Bleachery	-	no account filed
August 2015	Hail	Bleachery	-	no account filed
August 2015	Hail	Bleachery	-	no account filed

Every storm 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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Ayres City	0.5 miles	48
Lowell	0.8 miles	48
Oaklands	1.0 miles	48
South Lowell	1.1 miles	41
Belvidere	1.1 miles	48
Highlands	1.8 miles	48
Centralville	1.9 miles	48
Wamesit	2.1 miles	48

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 Q122593943

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 611768. 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.