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

Coburnville, Massachusetts

40 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Framingham City. It lies in ZIP code area 01702. It stands on Merriam Hill. The Survey maps it on the Framingham quadrangle.

Coburnville within Middlesex County

Then and now

1886 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 103 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Coburnville, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet of Coburnville, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

40 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

30,115 words on this township

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1890 names this settlement in its chapter on Framingham City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Hastingsville, just beyond the State muster-field, on the road to Saxonville, taking its name from the Hastings family, who lived and did business there, was one of the older settlements. After the coming of the Para Rubber Factory came the dwellings in what is known as the Para District. About a mile away, on the broad acres of Loker Brothers, has grown up, since the beginning of 1884, what is known as Lokerville, with over 100 handsome cottages, a chapel, school-house and store. Just over the Sherborn line, near the " Para," is Sherbornville, a collection of new houses, accommodating about 300 people, all on account of the Para business. Around the boot-factory has grown up a bustling centre, with a school-house and store. This is called Coburnville, named for a member of the boot manufacturing firm, Mr. N. P. Coburn. Around the three now rattan industries is growing up a handsome settlement called Prattville, in compliment to Mr. Wellington N. Pratt, who owned most of the laud and is enterprisingly developing it. Mr. R. M. Everit, of New Haven, Conn., has laid out many acres into handsome streets and house-lots, and so has Jlr. T. L. Sturtevant and Mr. John H. Goodell. The sections owned by them are being rapidly built upon.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1890.

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 Framingham City.

Fires near this place

141 since 2016

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 141 fires within 5 miles of Coburnville between 2016 and 2020, burning about 56 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 6 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
Debris and open burning	59
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	40
Recreation and ceremony	13
Power generation/transmission/distribution	6
Arson/incendiarism	6
Misuse of fire by a minor	5
Railroad operations and maintenance	3
Smoking	3
Fireworks	2
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Natural	1
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
8 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
7 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
6 September 2019	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
5 September 2018	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 September 2018	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
26 September 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 1,051 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,051 specimens collected within 10 miles of Coburnville between 1898 and 1975: 810 Animalia, 173 Plantae, 66 Fungi, 2 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. F. Newton, A. L. Bosworth 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
Corvus brachyrhynchos brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822	1900	not recorded	Wayland
Actaea pachypoda Elliott	1898	Ernest Charles Smith
Antennaria howellii subsp. canadensis (Greene) R.J.Bayer	1898	Williams, E.F.
Antennaria parlinii subsp. fallax (Greene) R.J.Bayer & Stebbins	1898	not recorded
Antennaria plantaginifolia (L.) Hook.	1898	not recorded
Aquilegia canadensis L.	1898	M. I. Gunn	Natick
Agonopterix atrodorsella Clemens, 1863	1900	E. J. Smith	Sherborn
Apantesis Walker, 1855	1900	E. J. Smith	Sherborn
Apatelodes torrefacta J.E.Smith, 1797	1900	E. J. Smith	Sherborn
Archips cerasivorana (Fitch, 1856)	1900	E. J. Smith	Sherborn
Bleptina caradrinalis Guenée, 1854	1900	E. J. Smith	Sherborn
Boletus auriporus Peck	1900	G. E. Morris

All 1,051 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 18 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 18 workings within 5 miles of Coburnville: 12 past producers, 3 plants, 2 producers, 1 unknown. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Iron. 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
Hawkridge Bros--Ashland, Ma.	Iron	Plant
Panlini Loam Co	Peat	Past Producer	Peat
Ashland Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Holliston Plant	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant
Simeone Stone Corp	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Trimount Bituminous Prod	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Ashland Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Plant
Ashland Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Ashland Sand and Gravel Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Framington Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Framingham	1.1 miles	40
Workmans Circle Camp	1.6 miles	41
Ashland	1.7 miles	40
Framingham Center	1.7 miles	40
Lokerville	2.3 miles	40
Whitneys	2.7 miles	41
West Natick	3.0 miles	40
Gooch Corners	3.2 miles	41

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 Q122539698

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 611620. 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.